Strange Twist

February 19th, 2006 | By: Jay | 1 Comment »

We always hear lip service paid by athletes and the media to the notion that ‘enjoy today because tomorrow is guaranteed to no one’ but occasionally you get reminded that, indeed it is true. It was Alan Smith yesterday, and today a messy challenge from behind on Francesco Totti ended with his left ankle pointing in an awful direction and his WC status in jeopardy.

Things look better now than even a couple hours ago, and Totti might only spend two months on the shelf. Time will tell. Immediately I thought “well, how does this change things up front for the Azzurri?” And really, the answer is “it doesn’t”. Totti’s absence last fall from an Italian WC qualifier and a couple friendlies gave Lippi the chance to look at a Toni/Gilardino/Del Piero set up and the result against Holland shows that trio can be successful. Tactically Lippi wouldn’t change anything in Totti’s absence although they’d certainly lose some athleticism and there would be pressure on the midfielders to push forward a little and link up with the forwards.


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Username By Rick | February 23rd, 2006 at 2:52 pm
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I agree with the last part — it probably won’t matter very much to the Italian squad. They have plenty of talent and will be a strong team with or without him.

I would be *very* suprised to see him come back in less than three months from an injury like that. It just looked too severe. He will need to keep his foot and ankle immobile until it heals, then he will need to go through rehab, and won’t be able to play at full speed for a while after that.

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