Catania, summary of season 1 UP TO last few games

Hello readers,welcome back!

This post will be a summary of my first seasan UP TO the last few remainig games, which will be very important, with a potential cup final and an away date at runaway leaders Inter, so buckle your seatbelts, I'm about to start!

Here are some pre-seasno results, I normally let my assistant to complete these matches, apart from a few in which this case was my first game for Catania against the reserves in which we won 1-0. We also ran aout comfortable 6-0 winners against one of our feeder clubs and thrashed another exactly the same score. The only team we failed to defeat were Pisa.

The competitive season started against newly-promoted side Cesena, i which we saw them of in a 1-0 win with a free-kick from our captain, Mascara. We then had to meet juventus, who had qualified for the Europa league last season, in which we came from behind to snatch a 1-1 draw. We then traveled to Fiorentina for our first away game of the season, in which an own goal and substitute Marco Verrati converted a penalty both in the second half gave us all three points. We then suffered our first defeat of the season against Parma in which we didn't create much and we deserved nothing. In the next match against Brescia we went ahead but were pegged back by a beautifully struck 25-yard goal. We played slightly better against Sampdoria and deserved the 1-1 draw, who were in the champions league. We then lit up against Lazio and were 2-0 up by half time. They then pegged it back to 2-2 which really annoyed me. I decided to go out on the attack for a winner and that came from a thunderbolt strike by right-back Alvarez. This football continued to when we visited A.C Milan at the San Siro in which we got a well-earned point with a penalty in the last minute. I decided to go and watch some players play which were on my shortlist but realized we were playing in the cup so I told my assistant to give the reserves a game and impress me and they won 3-0. Back to the league, we played out a scrappy 1-1 draw with Bari. We then trashed Lecce 4-1 we returned to our home ground for our next game, which could have been 5-1 with a missed penalty. We then gave Udinese a good penalty but  Di Natale and Sanchez were just to good for us. We then had a tough game coming up against local rivials Palermo. We defended very well and grabbed a 1-0 win through a penalty to send the fans home delighted. We were brought don to earth in our next match at Bologna let them score due to sloppy marking at a corner and the then built a brick wall around their goal. my highlight of the first bit of this post was our 3-1 win at Napoli, after coming from 1-0 down to win. Here are the highlights.

After working my socks off finding out how to beat Napoli, I gave myself a rest at the cup match and decided to see how my assistant would do against Torino. We won 2-1. Our league form then continued as we beat Chievo 3-0 away from home. We started off brilliantly against Genoa in our next match by scoring in the first minute, But it then  became the show of sloppy defending and Luca Toni as he scored to help us lose 3-1. We then went of To Roma for our last match before the winter break. Roma were playing very well and it was no surprise they were 1-0 up at half time. We then came out of the tunnel a new side and got an equalizer. In the last minutes our hearts were then broken as De Rossi scored with a long shot to seal all three points. Our supporters were very upset losing to a rival club after the match.

In the transfer window I still had a portion of my budget left and decided to invest for the futre. I got 16 year old striker Antonio and made a bid for his team-mate left back Ronaldo. He demanded too high wages for us but later in the season I spoke to the press on how I admired him and made another offer, in which he decided to join. Personally I think Ronaldo has a lot more potential and I hope he can live up to it.

I also bought in young winger to be used as an inside forward From sampdoria, good dribbiling and flair stats, for the rest of the season.

After the winter break League leaders inter came for a visit and completely turned us over. We played terribly and deserved it.The next ten games I won't go in on detail.

A completely terrible run in the league of twelve games without a win. Sqaud morale was bad. Thinks started to get a bit better at the sampdoria game. Inspired by the tactic that had got Vauxhall Motors up the divisions Changing my approach to attacking and shorter passing, sampdoria struggled to get a draw and were lucky. We were inspired by Koman for our 4-4 draw with Brescia but were not fully concentrated. we were not as good against Lazio and A.c Milan were to good for us but Koman got his first goal for the club to put this run to an end. We then picked up another important 3 points against Udinese.

In the next match we played out a sloppy 1-1 draw with Bari, who we would face in the cup semi-final, after going ahead. We suffered a loss against local rivials Palermo who completley outplayed us. we got back on track with a comfortable 2-0 win against Bologna who would have overtaken us in the league if we had loss. We had a very big match at home next in the Coppa Italia semi-final against Bari. We took the lead when gomez converted a cross but Bari caught us out on the counter to level it at half-time. They then took the lead at half time to secure a win and two important away goals. All we could do was to win in the second leg.

We then travelled to napoli who we had previously beaten 3-1 at home. We were playing quite well until Biagianti was sent off after picking up his second yellow. I was very cross for letting this happen as I knew this was coming and decided to use my substitutes elsewhere. They then took advantage of this as they scored late on from a corner. We then stepped up our peformances as we comfortably beat chievo 2-0 with Ledesma running the show and it could have been a lot more. What made it even more special was at the end the commentary said "alby's" boys never looked like losing" which made me very proud! Then we defied the odds beating Genoa 1-0 thanks to a Dembele penalty. We then had a very hard match against second in the table Roma who had got their season back together after sacking Ranieri. I was delighted to come away with a point and defensively we played very well.

Next we had to go to Bari for the second leg in our cup semi-final, which we had to win to go through to the final.Lets see how we got on.

What a win! i don't know why it said we won 2-1 though. my side were given a wake up call after Gheezal converted a cross at the back post. We then scored thanks to a deflection at a corner. Still needing to score, in the 70th minute I went to "overload" mode and it didn't dissapoint! hard tackling midfielder Carboni turned up at the back post at the right time to convert a cross from the left. I then immideatley changed to standard strategy in case I was caught on the counter. 5 minutes into extra time I decided to go for it, and changed strategy to attacking and it didn't disapoint. Lopez showed why he should be in a shout for a regular first team spot, his second strike showed his finishing and compusure. I was also very happy how we played, constantly attacking down the left on the counter attack, and we could have scored a lot more. Well that's all for now folks, next time I will be posting on our very important last three games against Inter, Cagliari and most important of all, the cup final against Udinese, who had beaten Lecce in the semi-final, so make sure you don't miss out and follow my blog, and be the first to read my updates, with an e-mail being automatically sent to you. Here is the league table and the past positions of the league for Catania. Thanks For reading!