Down to the last Neuron: MCL Quinto Alto 6 – Mucche Pazze 4

The good thing about taking a break from Mucche Pazze games is: when you come back, it’s suddenly springtime! The last time I reported about a match the cold winter wind almost carried away my scrap paper. This time there was no wind, but still I had taken care and brought an actual notebook that would withstand even a storm of several beaufort. The first thing to note was two new faces on the squad: Giulia in goals and Mimi, the new Argentinean striker, up front. In Florence they have some fond memories of Argentinean strikers, and so of course there were high hopes for tonight’s match. And I am not betraying too much when I say that she lived up to the expectations in terms of goal scoring, but looked even more convincing when she controlled the ball in midfield and displayed her ability to play the right pass at the right time.

Coming in late, I was informed that the score was still 0-0. This changed quicker than I could get my weatherproof notebook out of my pocket. Fast attack by the opposition, too fast for the Mucche Defense, and nil-one it was. It wasn’t the only time tonight that things went too fast for the defense, and within a few minutes the nil-one became a nil-three, with the Quinto Alto girls playing some really nice and fast combinations. After that it was Giulia who kept the Mucche’s hopes for a better result alive (not the only time tonight), as she twice saved bravely in one-to-one situations. And her effort was not for nothing: Mimi plays a beautiful pass from the left wing into space, Sara makes the right move and hammers the ball into the net – 1-3.

The opposition however did not appear to be particularly worried by this. Instead, one of their players had apparently watched the recent Sampdoria-Juventus match. She tried to lob the ball into the goal from a distance like the great Antonio Cassano did last Sunday, but Giulia did a better job than Antonio Chimenti and put the ball over the crossbar. Needless to say she didn’t see the need to break her hand in the locker room after the game… But even with all hands intact she was taken by surprise in the next scene, when a covered shot from inside the area hit the back of the net to make it 4-1.

At this point, things looked quite dire, since the Quinto Alto girls played beautiful combinations and displayed some excellent one-touch-calcetto. A time out was to bring relief, and it did: immediately after play resumed, Mimi scored her first goal in Serie A with a crisp shot from the left. All that was missing now was Batigol’s machine gun. But even without that, she showed some more of her class, when a few minutes later she hammered the ball against the goalpost, a shot that might have caused a minor earthquake in the Peretola region. After these moments of excitement the game lost a bit of its intensity, and so the two teams went into half time with a score of 4-2 for Quinto Alto.

With the very first attack of the second half the Mucche showed that they had not given up their hopes yet. Mimi had a double chance to score, but first a defender and then the goalkeeper saved on the line. On the other side, Giulia also displayed some more amazing goalkeeping, when she blocked two shots in a row, the second one in full stretch from close up. Unfortunately, not everyone was as awake around this time of the game, and the opposition eventually capitalized on one of the many easy balls given away and made it 5-2 with a powerful shot from outside the box.

But when it seemed that the Quinto girls would steamroll the Mad Cows (only Giulia and the goalpost prevented the worst at this point), Sara all of a sudden obviously believed she was Ronaldinho and accordingly twirled an amazing free kick into the top left corner of the goal to make it 3-5 (to be admired in the video that our special Sky sports cameraman David Hartono took). And since Mimi apparently felt challenged by this feat, she decided to use the next free kick that the Mucche got to hammer the ball into the top right corner with a powerful, straight-line, no-nonsense shot. 4-5!

The history of football is full of great comebacks, and after being down 0-3, 1-4 and 2-5, the fanatic Mucche supporters were full of hope that this night would have a happy ending after all. But, alas, once again the great fighting effort was betrayed by those inexplicable lapses in concentration that had already cost the Mad Cows dearly before. And so another lost ball in defense gave the Quinto girls the chance their sixth goal, and they did.

There was no comeback after that, and so the first game of the new league finished somewhat ingloriously with a contested call by the referee (not the first one of the night), which caused Paolo to storm the pitch and ask for explanations. But no explanations were given. The fact remained that the Mucche Pazze had lost a match in which they were technically certainly inferior, but managed to compensate for a lot with individual class (Giulia, Mimi and Sara deserve special praise here) and great fighting spirit. They literally fought down to the last neuron in their head, a phrase that Alessia coined on the pitch after a powerful defensive header: “Ho compromesso il mio ultimo neurone.” But as she added off the pitch after the game: “Era per una causa buona.”

Jannis

The squad: Giulia – Alessia – Stefi – Costy – Mi Ah – Sara (2) – Mimi (2)

PS of the webmaster:
Our fans may have noticed we have a video on youtube this time!
Not only do we have two coaches (who do not shout at us too brutally), three goalkeepers and two house reporters/giornalisti.. we even have the filmaker following us! thanks David :-)