In a surreal atmosphere, with no viewers, Inter won 2-0 against Chievo and this is Nerazzurri’s fifteenth consecutive wind. Real Madrid (46 years ago) and Bayern (in 2005, but not in the same season) have been equalized, but it’s not an European record yet.
Inter scored after 41”, with Adriano from a very difficult angle, then Chievo tried to make life difficult to Julio Cesar but in second half Crespo (with a suspect handball before kicking) scored for the final 2-0.

Roma won at home vs. Parma (3-0, all goals in second half), but we have to remark that before the match (an open door match, we have to specify) AS Roma fans did not participate in a silence minute in memory of policeman Raciti. There were also slogans against police, a shame one week after Catania events. And it’s been the proof that if the stadium is ok, but you fill it with stupid people, violence problem has not been solved.

AC Milan had to face a difficult test, Livorno is a very good team, even more today with Stefano Fiore and Cesar Rodriguez, two former Lazio players. Ronaldo played in second half, but the decisive goal has been scored by Czech left back Jankulosky. At the end, in Milan San Siro stadium season tickets could watch the match, showing that at the end Italians find compromise between “zero tolerance” and anarchy. Everything went well, and we think they will go well next Sunday for Inter-Cagliari.

All matches started at 3 pm, for security reasons, as we already said. But at the end not every match started on time: Messina-Catania, another risky Sicilian derby, started at 4pm due to heavy rainfalls. An important win in Palermo, and Empoli now is fourth and will have to fight against Milan and Lazio (0-0 in Bergamo behind closed doors vs. Atalanta) for the Champions League qualifying round. Fiorentina had a very good afternoon: Toni and Mutu could not play, but their substitutes Reginaldo and Pazzini scored: Fiorentina is officially one of the candidates for fourth place!

Violence around Catania stadium

This is a derby that had to be played on a Friday night, so it didn't disturb the Sant'Agata procession. The police had to supervise the area around the stadium, in the afternoon of a working day. Outside, the situation is abnormal, and there is something similar to civil war; everybody knows how fierce the rivalry between Catania and Palermo is. Twice, the game is suspended - the footballers cannot play because of the tear gas on the ground. A policeman - police chief inspector Filippo Raciti, 38 - dies because of a crude bomb that explodes inside his car, and there are more than 100 wounded people in the Emergeny Room of Garibaldi hospital.

Well... this is not football; this is urban guerrilla warfare, the natural result of years of poor lawmaking against violence. They have been a complete failure: all the measures taken have just kept peaceful people away from the stadiums, and ended up concentrating the hooligans and people that consider football to be an excuse to give vent to their animal brutality. This afternoon, something happened at the beginning of second half when the Palermo "Ultras" arrived at the stadium, and there was a delay due to the large amount of security checks. And at the end of the game there was, as we said, the civil war. Maybe this was also due to Palermo winning with a controversial goal.

Immediately, Commissioner Pancalli decided to suspend the championships. Next Monday there will be a meeting between FIGC and the Government, but let us be a little bit skeptical; this is not the first time that someone has died because of a football match. It's sad, but it's also sad listening to the politicians saying that things like this cannot happen anymore (until next time, we say), and the football executives that suspend the championship (when we don't know how extensive this suspension could be). Of course, to stop for a day as a sign of respect for a policeman who died is correct, but they want football to be stopped until they find an ABSOLUTE solution. They want to reflect, and maybe stop all the championhips for the whole year. And then? When their false indignation has finished, nobody will think about this anymore. Especially the people that now are crying, who yesterday were arguing and shouting at the TV for a penalty or an off-side.

Unfortunately, nobody in Italy thinks about the football fan - the customer, paying a lot of money to watch the game. Are the violent people a minority? Yes, but don't worry, they do their best to make it impossibile for pacific people to go to the stadiums. Nominal tickets, prohibition to sell tickets at the stadium the day of the match, personal inspections to everybody going into the stadium. And all the while the violent never go to jail, and just keep on fighting the police all around.

As fans, we think that things cannot really change unless they focus on heavy punishments to the perpetrators of violence. For too long a time, the stadiums have been a free zone, where the laws do not apply, and they continue to be. Violence in football could be solved with cameras that identify the guilty parties, and with more stewards, and less policemen if possible (on several occassions, violence erupts because of clashesh between the police and hooligans). But we bet that the executives will think long and hard, and still do nothing effective. In the end, maybe they will decide that it will be possible to watch football only on TV; on the channels they own, of course.

When a top team has to sign many and many players in the January window, it means that something is going wrong during the season. Injuries, or bad results. This special transfer period hasn’t a long tradition in Italy, and we never had a club winning the Scudetto because of transfers in this period. We just remember three years ago, when Inter was fighting with Parma and Lazio for the qualifying round of Champions League, and in January signed best players of its opponents, Adriano (Parma) and Stankovic (Lazio). Of course, at the end Inter could go through with its fourth place.

Nobody who understands a little bit of football could think that without Sheva and with Oliveira replacing him, AC Milan could be stronger than before. When Galliani last summer said “at Christmas we’ll be overtaking Inter”, referring to the 8 points penalization, we thought it was an expedient to keep everybody in the club in high spirits. And nobody, neither Galliani himself, could believe his words.

That’s why now, after less than five months, and after Inter was not overtaken but it’s thirty points above, Galliani had to amend some mistakes. The best that he could do is having a revenge on his cousins by signing Ronaldo after a long shilly-shally about the price (it’s hard to understand for an old Ronaldo fan that Oddo was signed for more), and AC Milan has also to pay 112.000 euros to Inter, due to FIFA rule that gives money to clubs that contribute to player’s growing. Funny, isn’t it?

Palermo lost Amauri for a knee injury (his season has ended), so president Zamparini has just replaced him with another South-American, Edison Cavani of Danubio Montevideo. The 20 y.o. Uruguayan forward arrives one day later other forward Matusiak. Maybe Caracciolo will leave, with final destination Milan (red-black side). We will know in the next two hours.
Fiorentina has signed another 20 y.o. player, but a midfielder. Zradko Kuzmanovic from Swiss club FC Basel. That’s all, the rest of transfers could be good for someone to save from relegation or improve a couple of places in Serie A ranking. And it’s even normal that a club like Inter, which normally makes a lot of transfers, both inbound and outbound, this time lies in wait for next season’s transfers.

Looking at “Renzo Barbera” Stadium in Palermo, and all the streets around at about 7 pm, it was clear that Palermo-Inter would have been the main event in the long history of the “pink and black” team. Unfortunately for Palermo, the match was the most beautiful of the season, but Inter deserved the victory even more than it was at the end (2-1).

After Juventus' relegation, there are four teams that can compete with the Milanese in a single match: AS Roma, AC Milan, Fiorentina and Palermo. Well, it has been 12 points for the “nerazzurri” against them and – except for the derby - all matches were away. Tonight, in front of about 40,000 in attendance, with no empty seats and viewers in more than 180 countries watching the game on TV, Palermo was one of the starts in a spectacular “Sunday Night” match. Mancini made the surprising choice of playing Adriano ahead of Crespo. Cruz and Dacourt for Inter, and Biava and Di Michele for Palermo were injured, and among the Sicilians' starting 11 was the young defender Paolo Hernan Dellafiore, an Italo-Argentinean that Palermo signed last Summer, coming from Inter in exchange for Grosso.

After six minutes, Ibrahimovic shot from 30 meters and Palermo’s goalie Fontana (four years at Inter) made a big mistake, letting the ball pass under his hip: 1-0 for Inter. Palermo is suffering, and Inter have incredible ball possession, and then Adriano, after a chip pass from Ibra, comes very close to scoring the second goal, but his strike is out. Minute 45, a cross from the left, a header by Bresciano, and Amauri scores with a volley that hits the goal-post and goes in: 1-1. Maybe Materazzi could have been closer to the Brazilian striker, but his mistake is just a spot on his perfect first half. In the beginning of second half, the two scorers have to leave for an injury, Crespo and Caracciolo replace them. Adriano shows that, when he plays for the team and not for himself, he’s the valuable player we used to know. The problem is that, after his long absence, he cannot run for 90 minutes, but the injury of Ibra complicated Mancini’s plan.

Materazzi hits the same goal-post of Amauri, but he’s not as lucky as him and Corini saves on the line. An Inter counter-attack gives a new advantage to the “nerazzurri” at minute 60’ with French captain Vieira. Palermo is KO, but in the last five minutes Inter suffers and Caracciolo hits another goal-post, but it’s not enough and Inter wins. The MVP is Dejan Stankovic: a wall, not a midfielder!
Now the ranking says: Inter 33, Roma 29, Palermo 27.

Sampdoria-Roma in the name of Totti. The AS Roma captain runs twice with a thumb in his mouth (his way to exult for a goal after his baby’s birth) to celebrate his double to Sampdoria. The “blucerchati” just try to resist, but at halftime Roma is already ahead 3-1, with its leader in a very good shape. Final score is 4-2 for the “red and yellow” team. Everybody in “Ferraris Stadium” clapped to Totti’s second goal (a fantastic volley from the left), even Sampdoria fans: after today’s match the discussion about his refusal to play for Italian National Team is still open. In fact, Totti dedicated his two goals to Platini and Matarrese (Italian League Chairman) that recently criticized his choice. We think that – though National Team should not be refused by anybody - Totti has the right to say no, but at the same time coach Donadoni has the right not to call him once he’s ready. Anyway, now AS Roma is second in the Serie A rankings, and nobody could bet a single Euro for the final win of a third team which is not Inter Milan or Roma.

After the “Calciopoli” scandal, that sent Juventus to “Serie B” and gave an 8 point penalty to AC Milan, everybody claimed Inter Milan would be the team to win the Italian League. The overall opinion is that only AS Roma of World Champions Totti, De Rossi and Perrotta can cause problems to the “nerazzurri”, while all other teams will fight for third place.

On the contrary, after day 12 Inter is on the top with 9 wins and 3 draws, but on the second step of the podium we don’t find the Romans, but the “pink & black” jerseys of Palermo, just 3 points below Mancini’s team. Obviously “Renzo Barbera” Stadium is sold out for Palermo-Inter, the main game of day 13 scheduled for tomorrow, November 26th at 3pm (GMT +1): 850.000 Euros at the box office, a record for Palermo! Everybody is crazy, and the 37,000 seats capacity of the stadium won’t be enough to satisfy the huge amount of requests from the whole Sicily, and the rest of Southern Italy. No problem, it will be possible to follow the match live in two different pay TV Stations (Sky and Mediaset) and a couple of Web TVs.

Inter went through the “Final 16” of the Champions League last Wednesday, after winning a home match against Sporting Lisbon, while Palermo has been heavily defeated by Fenerbache, in a UEFA Cup match where its main players took a rest. Missing tomorrows match because of a "red card", just midfielder Fabio Simplicio played in Istanbul. Chairman Zamparini gave the media a very optimistic forecast: "Palermo will win 4-1" he said. On the other side, World Champion Fabio Grosso keeps a good memory of the two years spent in Sicily, but now he wants to win at Inter. By the way, the Milanese team, after being assigned the "Scudetto" by the Italian FA last July because of the relegation of Juventus, has quickly become the most hated one in the country, replacing the "black and white" of Turin. That's why everybody but the Inter fans root for Palermo tomorrow. Especially people around Juventus - like Del Piero - hope that finally the Sicilians will win the championship. Coach Guidolin says "thanks", but we bet he is not thinking of the “scudetto”, focusing just on the match vs. Inter. Will David defeat Goliath tomorrow? Let’s wait and see…