No such things as the Mangia Effect.

By: Steven | September 19th, 2011

Merda

Last week, Palermo and new coach Devis Mangia gave a big middle finger to all the pessimists and the non-believers. Only 7 days later, the team gave those non-believers a new stick to hit with. The coach and half of the team may have changed, Palermo’s inability to beat lower ranked teams in less than optimal circumstances has remained. On a flooded pitch in Bergamo, our boys went behind thanks to a German Denis goal. Until that point, the game was pretty even with shots fired from both sides, but Atalanta took the lead after Bonaventura and Denis beat both the offside trap and Tzorvas. The latter clearly can take a part of the blame, as his positioning on the play was pretty abysmal.

With both Alvarez and Miccoli already subbed off from the water-logged pitch, shit was about to hit the fan big time when thunderstorms completely flooded the pitch. Half an hour later, the game was restarted and our first loss of the season was a fact. Who’s to blame? Probably the whole team. Sure, the weather and the time of day weren’t helping, but Atalanta had the same problem. Ilicic didn’t follow up last week’s performance and even got Mangia pretty worked up, Tzorvas got him some Palermo Goalkeeper Fever and the attack was terrible. Even Balzaretti wasn’t his usual self. A match to forget, especially with next week’s match against unbeaten Cagliari coming up.

Le Pagelle

Tzorvas – 5 – Terrible positioning on the goal. Looked like previous Palermo keepers, which is not a good thing.

Pisano – 6 – Played better than last week, both defending and attacking. Needs more time to settle in.

Silvestre – 6 – Went down with the rest of the team.

Migliaccio – 7,5 – Best player on the squad for the second time in a row. Plays like a natural CB without being a natural CB.

Balzaretti – 5.5 – I think this was Balza’s worst performance in the pink and black. Not fast enough, not good enough.

Alvarez – S.V. – Wasn’t on the pitch long enough to be decisive.

Barreto – 6.5 – Best player in midfield. One can only wonder what would’ve happened without him on the field.

Della Rocca – S.V. –

Iličić – 4 - Disastrous game from the young Slovene. Lost a lot of balls, fucked up some free kicks and was completely anonymous for most of the game.

Abel Hernandez – 5 – Half of what Abel does are useless movements. Needs to step it up if he wants to be a regular starter.

Miccoli – 5.5 - Anonymous game from Il Capitano, ended with a foot injury.

Pinilla – 6.5 - Another great performance from the Chilean, and that on such a pitch. Needs to start in stead of Abel.

Highlights by Pietro Falanga