DOWN YOU GO LAZIO!! DOWN YOU GO!! Please.

By: Ben | October 18th, 2008

If there is anything holy in this life, if there is any strength in desperation, if there is a God above to gather the echoes of aggravated discontentment and the sound of a wet tongue clenched against irritated gums; if there is such a deity to be prompted into righteous action, he/she should practice the muscle of divine intervention and usher the Bolognese through the fascist regime (Lazio) tomorrow afternoon.
The Pugliese snakes of Lecce slipped through the Olimpico and plucked a point off of Goran Pandev’s unibrow thanks to the bald horn blowing Simone Tiribocchi. So implausible the statement, the minute the ball was propelled off his jagged dome and past the stationary Carrizo I could only remain dumbstruck with my jaw scraping the carpet. The proceeding superfluous celebration was just a further demonstration of its absurdity. I have no doubt that this was nothing less than a miracle, the few instances graced upon us in tempered periods of time to remind us that yes we are not alone.
Tomorrow we are without Christian Amoroso and the grandfather: Massimo Marazzina; yet the Congo-Belgio midfielder, the former Laziale is fit and primed for the encounter. If the damned heel of Italy, if those orecchiette and broccoli rabe sucking Leccese and their seizure inducing shirts can be graced with a well timed hiccup, then so can we. The key is simple, to make ourselves a receiving vessel of all things holy; a satellite dish for the divine and by god Arrigoni better pull out that wood staff and shepherd for once because the blind enthusiasm of our three points in Milan have damn well worn off and all that remains is the numb feeling of unconsciousness; the result of repeatedly having our genitalia stomped upon by the bullies of the Serie A, or maybe that numb sensation is the result of strong liquor, the only solace for us now is found in the bottle.
Bologna birthed the likes of Ducati motorcycles, Lucio Dalla, and Giorgio Morandi who is currently on exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (an Italian painter whom basically painted for the most part still life compositions from his apartment, most recently and audaciously seated ahead of Cézanne in the New Yorker Magazine). If you’ve ever had the luck of eating in a restaurant in Bologna of the caliber of Da Vito and tasted the exquisite bollito misto and the tortellini, you’d be hard pressed to think of a better meal in your lifetime. The point is: industry, art, and food are in abundance so why not the sport?
We’re the first and only team to allow the white grips of American investors to plant the greed seed of dollar bills into our football system and the estimated amount of twenty five million Euros were supposedly spent in fortifying the team, yet we are limply languishing in the top spot of the relegation zone with the other two promoted teams: the Veronese bastards, Chievo in sixteenth and Lecce in thirteenth.
It’s so tiring. What is left but hope? What’s left after hope has become the title of an Alanis Morissette album: Jagged Little Pill? Oh, it doesn’t get worse than this; I can see myself sucking on a post game Shochu cocktail and a rotten grapefruit with that cursed Alanis harping her filth:

All I really want is some peace man
a place to find a common ground
And all I really want is a wavelength
All I really want is some comfort
A way to get my hands untied
And all I really want is some justice…

This is the end, like a black fly in my Chardonnay, oh God have mercy on me, have mercy on my team, Dio salva mi! I hope to write next in greener pastures, with a pocket full of six point and if is there is any salvation in this life, dignity.