Roma has better material, they have a much better tactician than we do and they even had the ref's favor, that protected their butchers of doing their dirty job.
But we have the heart of the champion and proved that being a boss and owning teams like, Roma is an average day at the office...
It is, in our DNA actually, there is no other way to explain how the worst Juve of the decade, owned one of the best Roma's of the five last years...
They know they cant win us and they have some mental problems to face, when they are playing against us, thats why they sucked that bad today, not because of their incoming game against Real, as Spaletti himself noticed!
Despite us being deep in our regular winter crisis and them having won 3 out of their 4 last games, we totally dominated this game from the very beginning creating 3 goal chances in the first 2',
we showed them right away who the boss is.
CR decided to grow up some balls and drop the creative-less 4-4-2 to a more creative approach,4-3-3
Truth is that we had no better options than that, considering our available material and their form.
CR proved many times over, he hasnt the guts to try such a risky everything or nothing formation.
BUT, he did it this time and i have to reckon that it was the best possible formation to start.
We were focused and determined, creating chances after chances and suffocating Roma's midfield, despite using two midfielders less than them!
We dropped our usual long ball crappy football and our brilliant wingers were creating havoc at Roma's edges and that fact obligated them to pull back and adopt a passive role in the game. A thing that they are not particularly good to do.
With other words we dominated the game and the goal was only a matter of time.(despite the lack of any attacking plan however)
Roma's clumsy and brutal defenders and DMs started to make more violent fouls by the minute, the ref however allowed them to do their worse and chose not to book anyone, risking to lose the control of the game and turn this derby into a fight on the pitch.
This is were the determination of our champions like Neddy and Camo took over, they were constantly and efficiently coming closer to Roma's box and force the Roma defenders to losen their lines and do some hasty, uncareful tackles,
in one particular counter attack, we had 4 attackers against 3 defenders with Neddy having the ball and 3 options to chose, for an assist, or a direct shot, just a few meters outside Roma's box, thats why Mexes had no option than stop him at any costs before he reached the box,
make no mistake it was a clear foul, Mexes admitted that himself and in the replays you can see that there was on contact or even intention to stop the ball, Mexes only wanted to stop our counterattack.
Neddy should try and pass the ball to an unmarked teammate but he didnt have the chance to do that. Mexes brought Neddy down and he should have shown the second yellow card there, but the ref had no intention to favor Juve at any case and end the derby there.
But DP didnt agree with that.
Alex the great decided to pull one of his great FKs and finish this game right there all by himself, job done by the captain!
At this very moment the mentality of the Roma's players was bellow zero and we should keep on like that and extend our lead, but NO
CR decided that a draw would be enough to fit his plans and started to pull out our creative players one by one, pulling out Camo,Neddy and Treze and using Noce,Sissoko and Palla instead
That resulted us losing our creative capabilities upfront and the control of the game among with that.We drew back and started to defend the lead, allowing Roma to use their best weapon, their super creative and effective midfield,
luckily for us though, Totti,Pizarro and Taddei were horrible, Mancini and Giuly werent as good as they usually are and the rest of our players were as determined as our starters, to do the difference and beat this team!!
Our wing backs were brilliant, creating counterattacks, support AMFs and filling up the gaps fast enough to help our central midfielders to deal with all Roman weapons.
Legro was an imposing figure in the back and Chiellini was elbowing his way through every Roma AMF.
Roma tested our wing backs for 30 minute with no luck. That was really impressive to watch, as i had great respect for their creating force and absolutely no respect to our weak defense, but in the end we proved to be more efficient than them in both attack and defense. Once in a while we were trying to put a decent counterattack but the ref let Roma to stop the ball with fierce tackles from the back and handballs in their box without taking notice.
Roma had the possession of the ball, but hey failed to create any serious chances, we had no tactical plan, other than defend the ball and keep it much as possible so they wont get it and create more chances.
Our captain again was the man for this job and he single handed/footed managed to waste about 15 valuable minutes, to our favor, a contribution, almost as vital as the goal, thats why he is arguably MOM
Buffon - 6.5 Excellent positioning and patience, he let our CBs to clear many balls right in front of him with his vocal commands and only and avoided any confusions.He was only really threatened by a FK
Zebina – 7.0 One of his best performances of the season, he was omnipresent and made no mistakes, he proved Roma, that he has more potential than they thought
Legrottaglie – 7.0 Dominating figure in our back, he acted as the leader of our defense and cleared away all the danzerous balls, without making any mistakes and avoid all risks
Chiellini - 6.5 Acted like a 33 experienced CB, he is the future of Italian defense, but i m still worried about his fierce tackles and elbows,he made no mistakes this time! I would place him on our left flank and give a chance to Stendardo while getting rid of Molinaro next week
Molinaro – 5.5 Always our weakest link and a liability, my position on the field is the shame as Molinaro's and i m confident, i can do better than him, somehow he managed to create less damage today though...
Camoranesi - 7.0 Having an on form Camo and Neddy in our wings is a luxury we rarely have, but when we do have it, we never fail to score and defend properly, no matter who our adversary is!!Was he injured, i cant see the reason he was subbed for Noce, as he can defend as well and be much more useful ahead, creating chances and wasting time to defend the lead
Zanetti – 6.0 The guy was all alone against 3 of the best midfielders in the league, he was destined to pay the bill for our tactic choice and dissapear, however he did great job on harrashing Roma's midfielders in the first half, later on with 3 DMs i expected more though...
Nedved - 7.5 What are we going to do without Neddy, they guys is creating 50% of our attacking chances and is omnipresent in both attack and defense for a full 90' at his age, i always thought Mancini is the only player able to be his hair, but now i changed my mind, there is no player. ABLE, to replace old Neddy...
Iaquinta – 6.5 He contributed a lot, with runs and supports, he wasnt very effective at finishing today, but he was on of the reasons (tactically) that we dominated the game at the first half, if Roma had such a CF, we wouldnt manage to run away with that win!
Trezeguet - 5.5 yea yea, the usual Treze, he cant create chances by his own and if he isnt served properly he cant shine, thankfully the job was done and his role wasnt needed, CR "traded" him for more control in the midfield
Del Piero - 8.0 Showed Totti what a CAPTAIN means again, as CR said, we won this game because of the "self sacrifice our forward showed" and
i m sure that he had Alex the great on his mind
Nocerino – 5.0 worst player on the pitch, he is not on form, he can only get booked for no reason and thats it
Sissoko – 6.0 i m sure that he will manage to steal Noce's place as a starter soon enough
Palladino - 5.5 litle time to show up, but did he actually touched that ball, he was brought in to hold the ball and waste some time, thats smth he can do pretyy well, but he didnt