Saturday, February 20, 2010

The Cup went again to AC Milan – complete repetition of 1972: same champion, same cup winner. As for fun… only one team managed to score more than two goals per game average – AC Milan with 65. The second highest scoring team was Juventus – measly 45. Six clubs scored less than 20 goals during the season. Only six clubs ended with less than ten draws. Even with Zoff Juventus did not have the best defense – Lazio received less goals. Daggers and garrote…
AS Roma barely escaped relegation, finishing at 11th place, but four clubs ended with the same points and goal difference decided final place. AS Roma happened to have better negative goal difference than the unlucky Atalanta, with Sampdoria and L.R. Vicenza sandwiched between them – the Romans boasted handsome minus 5; Atalanta – minus 17 goals. Some success…

The photo is actually from 1971-72 season, which was hardly different or better…
Bottom, left to right: Cappellini, Del Sol, Salvori, Vieri, Amarildo.
Top: Bet, Ginulfi, Cordova, Scaratti, Petrelli, Santarini.
The old Spanish star Luis Del Sol (European Champions Cup holder with Real Madrid in 1960) retired, but the rest played… another ancient star, Amarildo (World Champion with Brazil in 1962) was to add even one more season (he and Del Sol already were playing in Italy when the ban on foreign players was decreed and were allowed to continue playing – by 1972-73, pretty much the last handful of foreigners in Italy, all near retirement). Left from Amarildo is Roberto ‘Bob’ Vieri – worth mentioning: certainly a familiar name? Yes, but it is his son Christian Vieri. As for Bob… not much to say about him, except that he eventually went to Australia, grew beard, played there, and fathered Christian. Judging by the squad, no wonder AS Roma struggled to remain in First Division. Even the hardest Roma fans did not dream of anything more than mid-table performance.