It would be a wild weekend in Serie A as two giants would fall and one treble winner from last season would win their first match of the year.
AC Milan and Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Robinho’s debut with the club would be overshadowed by the brilliant play of a group of unknowns. Cesena would pull off the league’s shocker of the week and perhaps even the season by handing the powerhouse squad a 2-0 defeat. Erjon Bogdani and Emanuele Giaccherini scored the first half goals and the highly anticipated arrivals of Ibra and Robinho would be outdone by the same squad that achieved a draw against Roma last week. Several football critics in the last week claimed AC Milan had joined the ranks of Barcelona and both giants lost in their respected leagues this weekend to new boys. Cesena’s remarkable start may be short lived, but this match may be the biggest upset of the season especially considering the upcoming player’s strike set to happen by the end of the month.
Roma, who tied Cesena last week, have started off their year yet again awfully slow. The defense was non-existent against Cagliari this weekend. The top four hopefuls were trounced 5-1 by the middle of the pack club from last year. The Roma squad were outplayed in every aspect of the game and went down early in the tenth minute via Daniele Conti’s goal. Roma leveled quickly, but found themselves down 3-1 heading into the half. The score would only get worse in the second half down a man from a 38th minute hard tackle in the box of Conti. The Cagliari star was removed from the game with injury, but the side prevailed in the second half with two more goals.
Inter, on the other hand, was one of the few powerhouse clubs that was not outplayed this weekend and Rafa Benitez earned his first victory in the Italian league with a nail biting 2-1 victory over Udinese thanks to a 67th minute penalty second effort courtesy of Samuel Eto’o. The original shot was saved, but Eto’o put it away when given the second chance and the treble winners from last season climbed past AC Milan on the league table in the process.
photo credit: Gerard Reyes