Winning Italian: Mucche Pazze 2 – Olimpia 0

In front of an unexpectedly large and fanatic tifoseria, the Mucche Pazze in their second match of the season for the first time played under the guidance of Mister Paolo and his assistant Giovanni Trapamazzoni. Yet it was the opposition from Olimpia, visibly inspired by the vocal instructions of their coach, who quickly took control of the match. While the Mucche came close to scoring at one point fairly early in the match when Amy just missed the goal, Olimpia spent most of the first half launching attack after attack against the MP goal. This however was guarded by Valeria, who appeared to possess a thousand arms (at least) on this rainy Wednesday night. She blocked shot after shot and made it clear from the outset to the girls from Olimpia that they would have a hard time to score. And as it happens so often in such constellations, the goal came on the other side. A pass/shot by Mi Ah slipped past the distracted goalkeeper to give the Mucche a 1-0 lead, which at that point admittedly came out of the blue. This did not discourage the opposition, who kept playing some fairly well organized and skilful football. They approached Valeria’s goal time and again, but the Mucche goalie mastered every challenge bravely.

This scenario changed in the second half, when the Mucche defence pushed up a bit and did not leave as much space to the opposition as in the first half. Olimpia remained dominant, but the MP looked increasingly comfortable in defending their lead. Even more so when Mi Ah at some point appeared alone in front of the goalie and with a well placed shot doubled the score to 2-0. This is what Italian sports commentators love to call the cattiveria of the great teams – they got three opportunities and score twice. Who would know better about this than the Italians?

Not surprisingly, the Mucche goal was under state of siege for most of the remainder of the match, but thanks to the fantastic team effort, the grinta of the defence which by then appeared to have a thousand legs (at least) and Valeria’s absolutely superb performance in the goal, the lead did not come under any serious threat till the final whistle. So in the end, the team could celebrate the hard fought second victory of the season with their five enthusiastic tifosi. Well done girls, and next time we’ll bring flares and cow bells à la Suisse!

Jannis