THE WOLF'S DEN - Tana dei Lupi I

[SPqR]

[RomaShield27]

Does that really concern us, SPqR? We're not even playing all that well, and still winning. Now we need to carry that winning mentality into the next few weeks. We've had the perfect start, and picked up a maximum nine points from our opening 3 games, all that more important and crucial considering our next 10 games. We have Mancini coming back into contention, Ferrari and Juan will be back to full-fitness, and so a full squad for these games. A 2-0 win, excellent result, squad full of confidence, and also the depth to perhaps rotate a few players to keep sharpness up and everyone fresh and healthy.

Goals and full-match is up in the MM thread.

[RomaShield27]

Our next 10 fixtures:

September:
Wed, 19th 20:45 – Dynamo Kiev (UCL) (H)
Sun, 23th 15:00 – Juventus (H)
Wed, 26th 20:30 – Fiorentina (A)
Sat, 29th – Inter (H)

October:
Tue, 2nd – Manchester Utd. (UCL) (A)
Sun, 7th – Parma (A)
Sun, 21st – Napoli (H)
Tue, 23rd – Sporting Lisbona (UCL) (H)
Sun, 28th – Milan (A)
Wed, 31st – Lazio (H)

Professor, that you? Are you a changed man? I presume there'll be no more nonsense talk from you now as a result? Won't have much to say then, I guess. How'd you get on?

[maro]

Shield, I am, as you expected, a changed man. The wedding went more wonderfully than we could have hoped - the only surprise for me was the extra vow the moglie had slipped in insisting I agree to eating lamb at least twice a week and the only disappointment was that DDR couldn't fire in a thirty-yard rocket to cap an otherwise perfect day. Italia was at its most brilliant best for us - there was mango gelato, a reading from Homer, a little Mozart, and even the peng did his best to look contrite rather than smug, though rumour has it he ran off with a couple of the lither cousins under his wings.

Your avatars were appreciated. We had a couple of days in Orvieto last week where I got a chance to poke my nose in here and enjoy the ovine delights you'd prepared. The two-headed sheep looked like some siamese twins' dream. You know how much these farm animals enjoy their 'salt-lick'.

And excellent work on reeling in the results. 9 from 9, eh? I wonder when the last time we did that was? Our start in the Capello Scudetto-season was pretty spectacular, so so long as we can glean another 9 points from these three easier games coming up we should be in pretty good shape before the big boys from Turin and Genoa come to town.

Time to go and put the roast on, I guess. Yolande has asked me to inform you, Shield, that she is more lamb than mutton. Which reminds me, I had a couple of drinks with some guy called Martin Newell over the weekend. Apparently he used to play a bit of gaelic back in his day. Needless to say, he concurred that hockey was the much harder sport these days.

[Italiamia]

Well, Maro, lets set aside the sentimental bull shit and get to the important questions: What did you eat after the 'broom jumping' ceremony, and most importantly, what did you drink? Also, given your views on religion, may I ask in what manner were you married? Did you simply have a civil ceremony, or was their a man of the cloth present? Was the ceremony conducted in Italian or English, or another obscure language.

What I am trying to say is give us the bloody details.

[p_maldini_3]

again, congrats maro!

lamb twice a week eh? thats not bad, for a start.

[vtec]

congrats maro!

how did you manage to trick her into it?

[maro]

Clearly times are tough when even one's bestiality jokes are getting condemned for an excess of sentimentality.

We were married in a civil ceremony, in the Comune, by the major of Pienza. Not a man of the cloth in sight, I'm afraid, though I hope the good Lord didn't look too unkindly upon us. The mayor was actually in the papers when we were in the Piemonte over Easter - linked with a housing scam in Montichiello which was expected to bring the curtain down on his reign. An auspicious start, no doubt. Such scandals, though, are clearly as much a prerequisite for as a hindrance to a political career in Italy.

All had to be over in time for the kick-off in the Italy-All Blacks match at 1:45 (the card the moglie played in exchange for yolande's place on high table, as it were). In the afternoon we had prosecco in the cloisters about which the hotel has been built - an invocation of the divine in spirit, at the very least. The prosecco was one di Valdobbiadene which had been suggested to us and the "Stuzzicherai" were bruschettine, olive all'ascolana, fiori di zucca, mozarelline di bufala. The food was really spectacularly good, actually - we'd eaten there two or three times so we had high hopes but we'd chosen the place in the first place for its location and atmosphere and so didn't perhaps deserve to be quite as lucky as we were. It was all pretty informal so we even managed to sneak in a gelato break late in the afternoon - ciccolato, mango, and fragola for those of less discernment; just a superb mango for the groom and the peng.

And then dinner was on the terrace of the hotel, as the brilliant evening light fell in the valleys below Pienza. Let me give you the chef's own account of the menu: first "i cappellacci di bufala campana d.o.p. fatti a mano con salsa di pomodorini pachino al profumo di pesto ligure." Then "il filetto di manzo gratinato al basilico con caponatina di verdure" or, for one or two of us, "lo strudel di verdure su coulis di pomodori ramati profumati al basilico." And finally a token torta al cioccolato for us to cut to keep the traditionalists happy, pecorino pientino fresco e semi stagionato, and "la meraviglia di cioccolato con salsa al marsala delle cantine Florio."

I'm afraid we may have let you down with the wine. We didn't push the boat out on the basis that anything really smart would be appreciated by too few and there had been better, smaller occasions for enjoying more special bottles during the preceding week. We did manage to have a so-called tasting of about a dozen of the wines on the winelist - profoundly unscientific, inaccurate, and all the more enjoyable for that. In the end we had a Vermentino, "Occhio a Vento," from vines up, apparently, near the Ligurian edge of Tuscany (Rocca delle Macie?). I guess the obvious option would have been to go for a Vernaccia di San Gimignano, but none of those we tried held up quite as well and while we've had some really lovely whites from the Alto Adige and Friuli it seemed a bit perverse not to have something more local. And for the red we had only bottle after bottle of the Boscarelli Rosso di Montepulciano which had been the crowd-pleaser at the tasting. The moglie and I most enjoyed the Bindella Vino Nobile of those we tried, but the restaurant's cellars were low on that and they gave us a Canneto to try, which, I gather, is deemed a very similar wine and comes from almost adjacent vines, but wasn't quite as much to our taste.

How is that for a start towards a little more detail?

[marco]

Mancini show, bordate a Figo e a Spalletti

09:33 del 17 settembre

Dà del piangina al romanista. "Il tecnico della Roma - spiega - ha sempre il fazzoletto". Traduzione Spalletti tende a lamentarsi di tutto e nascondere volontariamente i progetti di scudetto della Roma per evitare pressioni. E al portoghese dice: "Si abitui alle sostituzioni".
Luis, calci al tabellone per il cambio. Il portoghese poi lascia lo stadio senza aprire bocca.

(Gazzetta dello sport)


unbelievable! here we have mancini calling spalletti a whiner! well then, if spalletti carries around a hanky to wipe his tears, mancini must be walking around with a fucking bed sheet. there's plenty of tears to be wiped between his rant on vieira's injury, lack of players to fill out the lineup and the schoolgirl whining over the heat they had to play in against udinese. yes, cause the udinese players were walking around with air conditioners strapped to their bodies. good thing those episodes were strung out over the course of two weeks, otherwise someone may be inclined to call mancini a whiner. is there a bigger idiot in serie a at the moment? i dont think so.

[The MAN]

congrats maro...certainly this will change your life for the better....for the time being at least

[Jamoldo]

Congrats professore. Sounds like a great time was had by all.

[Italiamia]

[maro]

Avvocato, at times I wonder if there's a vine somewhere in Italy with which you don't have some kind of association.

I'm not sure my skills as a food critic are up to much, but I shall see what I can do. The cappellaci were quite a large, stuffed pasta - I'm not sure if that can be taken for granted since it seems to this straniero that pasta types within Italia are so local and so varied that I wouldn't be a bit surprised to discover that cappellacci in Campania are a small, cross-shaped pasta eaten exclusively with vin santo. Because the pasta was pretty capacious, as it were, the mozarella was able to keep its shape and consistency and flavour which made the whole effect very subtle and light. The tomato was also very lightly cooked so again the effect was very light and fresh and pesto was pretty delicate too - I should guess it was very light on parmigiano and pecorino so it was more like a kind of basil coulis or basil oil, as it were. Perhaps it was because the tomato came from without rather than from within, but the effect was of a series of discrete flavours, each standing up on its own and subtly colliding with the others. How's that for a start? The effect was just a bit subtler and more complex than that which comes with even the best pici all'aglione, say, fond as I am of that dish too.

[Italiamia]

[maro]

[Italiamia]

[aba_bab]

[romawi]

[maro]

[Zoff82]