I linked to this in the Meanwhile section yesterday, but here’s fresh video evidence of the Catania free-kick during which their players dropped their shorts in order to distract the goalkeeper while they scored. It’s subtler than you might expect from a coordinated goalie-mooning, but the compiler of the video has helpfully drawn a red circle around the relevant parts of the screen. And also piped in the theme music from Ghostbusters. There’s a lot I don’t understand about Italy.
[via Italy Offside]
Read More: Going the Extra Mile
by Brian Phillips · November 18, 2008
It also sounds like the announcer is sneezing in tune with the melody. Hmmm.
From what I can tell, it was only one Catania player doing the mooning, the others were simply forming a secondary wall in front of the goalie. From the way it has been reported on various blogs you would think the whole team dropped their pants.
That over-egging of the pudding is also present in the original Italian coverage (though it is interesting that this is getting much more play overseas (particularly in the Anglophone media) than it is here, where it only lasted one news cycle.)
Zenga appears to be obsessed with various means of trying to fool/confuse/distract the opposition. When Catania played Inter, they were doing a thing on free kicks where four or five guys rushed offside and then ran back into an onside position just as the kick was taken, and engaged in somewhat similar nonsense on corners. My gut feeling is that Plasmati decided to take what seemed to him to be the next logical step in this campaign on his own.
Someone with access to video of their complete matches could do a nice compilation to Benny Hill music.
Or Ghostbusters. They could go with the music from Ghostbusters.
Very good pick up Ursus, I remember that Inter game. It was interesting if not quite as methodically thought out as a Sacchi/Capello set-piece of yesteryear.