By Petar Todorovski
Every team that has arrived on Stadio Angelo Massimino has found it hard to win points there. However, Milan is a big team and dropping points there is not an option if they want to keep the advantage they have made so far.
Rossoneri occupied the top from the beginning of the campaign and never let it out of their hands. The four points advantage ahead of Napoli was even bigger, but in football no one is perfect, so they started loosing some points. Their recent Serie A form shows two wins and two draws in last four games, and two Coppa Italia victories in the meantime, making a three matches winning streak.
Although it can’t be noticed by the results, watching their games makes it obvious that Rossoneri don’t win so easily like they were doing that in November when they made the great record that still keeps them on the top. Pre-New Year home defeat from Roma, late victory against Cagliari and last minute equalizer with four goals conceded from Udinese are some of the reasons why Scudetto rivals closed the gap.
Nevertheless, Rossoneri staff knows that the team is imperfect, so they are one of the most active teams in this transfer window. The best scoop was Antonio Cassano, who proved him to be a great partner of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Alexandre Pato in attack. Despite him, here’s Mark van Bommel, an amazing midfielder who can do almost anything the coach wants from him: covering the midfield, harsh tackles and superb passing.
However, it won’t be easy in Sicily. Catania proved again that they are impressive on their own turf, suffering only two defeats there, both by table toppers Inter and Juventus. Catania sits on the 16th position with 22 points, three ahead of the relegation zone. It is amazing that even 19 of those 22 points were won on Stadio Angelo Massimino.
Catania fans still wait for the first victory in 2011 Etnei have won only one point in last four games, at home of course, but it’s more important to see what their recent home record is. In last five matches they won two games against teams similar to them (Brescia and Bari), had one draw (Chievo) and suffered the only two defeats at home so far against Inter and Juventus.
Milan has more misses for this weekend game. Pirlo, Abbiati, Nesta, Zambrotta, Inzaghi, Flamini, Boateng, Amelia, Gattuso, Seedorf, Jankulovski, Abate and Strasser are all injured. Van Bommel will be available for this match.
Catania will have to cope without Biagianti, Potenza, Izco and Llama. However, even without them they will try to steal some points from Rossonerri. Their coach Diego Simeone criticized his players after the bad match in Parma, pointing out the lack of concentration as a reason of their awful form. “We made too many sloppy mistakes and I can’t allow that. We must correct that. There was also a drop in concentration and you cannot afford to do that in this competition. We will have to play a perfect game against Milan if we are to get a result,” he said.
Milan coach Massimiliano Allegri expressed his awareness of Catania playing in Sicily. “It will be a stressful game for us tomorrow. They come off the back of negative results, and so they will be motivated against us. They are pratically an Argentinean team and so we need to be careful for all 90 minutes,” he said.
While he doesn’t take this game for granted, the Italian Prime Minister and owner of Rossoneri clearly stated that Scuddetto will arrive on San Siro. “This year we will win the Scudetto,” he said, claiming that the confidence is high in Milan and they’re determined to go on with their marsh to the title.
