Abbiamo Vinto!!

Sunday was an action packed day with the Fiorentina match playing the leading role. I slept in a little bit, did some homework, and then put on my Fiorentina gear (my Luca Toni jersey and Fiorentina scarf) and went to San Marco to meet Professor Batterman. Fabio and Batterman's son Giulio came along, and when I first met Giulio, he started speaking English but Prof. Batterman objected. "Niente inglese. Solo italiano. Lui e' lo mio studente." That's one of my favorite things about Prof. Batterman. No matter the situation, he always speaks to me in Italian. If the school were burning down, I'm pretty sure he would shout orders to me in Italian. Plus he knows my level and capabilities, so he never brings out anything I don't know. I feel pretty confident about my language skills when I talk with him.

We got to the stadium shortly before the game started and set up shop at Curva Ferrovia, the side of the stadium closest to downtown. This match, against Livorno, was an important one for Fiorentina for a couple reasons. Because of the penalties, Fiorentina is in 15th place, and if they finish in the bottom three out of the 20 teams of Serie A, they will be demoted to Serie B. There isn't much more room for them to slip. Also, because of Livorno's proximity, it's a big rivalry. The Livornesi, fenced off as usual by large plexiglass walls in their visiting fan section, were very fired up for the match. They talked some hopeless trash to the large Fiorentina crowd as their team was announced, only to be bombarded with cheers of "Livorno, Livorno, va fanculo!" from the purple abbiss surrounding them.

The match was a great one and Fiorentina controlled the tempo, playing the best soccer I had ever seen them play. Unfortunately they couldn't get the ball in the back of the net, missing opportunity after opportunity. The Romanian sensation Mutu missed at least six golden opportunities and Livorno capitalized on one of their few chances late in the first half. Florence failed to clear the ball out on a header and one of Livorno's strikers was able to traverse the goal from about 10 yards out and bury an easy shot. At halftime, things were looking grim for La Viola.

However, they continued to knock, with Mutu putting a couple more decent looks wide. He finally took a great shot from the 18 that the goalie barely got a hand on. But Toni was right there to put it away to even the score. After that Fiorentina kept pushing hard. In the 81st minute Toni received a pass with his back to the Livorno goal and played off a beautiful ball to Jorgenson who drilled it home for the lead. Then Fiorentina held on for the victory.

On my way home I ran into Matt and Conor, who were on their way up to Fiesole to catch the tail end of the sunset. I joined them, and we ended up exploring the hill next to Fiesole that turned out to be a large park with many hiking trains. Though it was dark and our only light was the moon, it was a beautiful area that looked out over the entire city. It's definitely a spot that I'd like to return to for camping when the weather gets warmer.

After that we got dinner at the self-service restaurant by San Marco, which didn't bode well for all of us. Matt and John ended up catching food poisoning and spent their nights and mornings crouched in front of a toilet. We think it was the salsice they had on their pizza and spaghetti, but whatever it was, we're never going back to that place again. Which is too bad because I loved their gnocchi and pizza.