Intro: Six months after helping Padova dramatically escape relegation, Alexi Lalas is grappling with a dreadful season.
As they were last season, the citizens of Padua are once again burdened with one of the weaker teams in Serie A. Like his teammates, U.S. international Alexi Lalas is living through the unique torment losing inflicts upon the professional athlete.
“They have a saying here, ‘We were born to suffer,'” says Lalas of the northern Italian city known mainly for its proximity to the canals of Venice. “And we sure are suffering now.”
Padova is rooted to the bottom of the 18-team standings with just one win and two ties from 12 matches, the last of which found Lalas on the bench for only the second time since he joined the club. He sat out one match with a red card last year.
The club purchased Dutch striker Leonard Van Utrecht — who resided in Lexington, Ky., as a teen-ager — last month from Second Division Cambuur to team with countryman Michel Kreek. When Croat striker Goran Vlaovic returned after sitting out more than a month with a head injury, the club had to choose three of its four foreigners.
Lalas says head coach Mauro Sandreani wanted to rest him for a week, partially due to his heavy playing schedule with the Italian league and the U.S. national team the past 18 months.
“It’s not the legs, it’s the head,” Lalas says of how year-round playing takes it toll. “This league can do it to you.”
Padova started over from scratch
His benching didn’t help. Padova lost away to Fiorentina 1-0 on a Gabriel Batistuta goal scored in the fourth minute of second-half stoppage time — a loss painfully indicative of how the ball is running for a club that sold three starters during the offseason.
“We started from scratch,” says Lalas. “In Serie A, experience is everything, and we have none of it. I’m not going to say I’m playing as well as I did last year. The team is playing poorly and the players are struggling, and that includes me.”
Although Nicola Amoruso, acquired from Fidelis Andria of Serie B is among the league’s top scorers, Padova has so far been unable to duplicate its stunning wins of last season over the likes of Juventus and AC Milan. Its only win in the first dozen games came against promoted Piacenza, and it fell to fellow relegation candidate Cremonese 2-1 last month.
Lalas says his teammates and the Padova fans haven’t turned on him because of his signing with Major League Soccer, but a high-profile foreign player on loan is an easy target for the press as losses pile up. Several times he’s been Padova’s lowest-rated player in the weekly evaluations.
“The press is so big, so powerful, but then you realize it’s only two or three guys [that cover the team],” he says. “If they don’t like you, they can really make it rough.
“If I play badly, I expect them to say that I played badly. But if you believe everything they write, you could very easily start to think you’re just a piece of crap, that you have no worth at all. Once you start to think like that, you’re done.”
Padova started off badly last season in its first Serie A appearance since 1962. It crawled out of the relegation zone in the second half of the season, then slipped and needed a dramatic playoff victory over Genoa to avert dropping back down.
Escaping this season is going to require another reversal, but Lalas insists he can take it all in stride, as he did when his previous landlord held his satellite dish for ransom. He changed residences, and had to wait for his dish to be liberated while the landlord argued with Padova regarding money the club supposedly owed.
“I’ve talked before about the tremendous success I’ve had over the past two years,” he says, “and how I look at this is, it all balances out.”
by Soccer America senior editor Ridge Mahoney
Italian Serie A
Dec. 3 in Padua
Padova 0, Fiorentina 1. Goal: Batistuta (90).
Padova — Bonaiuti, Sconziano (Nava, 57), Cuicchi, Giampietro, Rosa, Gabrieli, Longhi, Coppola, Kreek (Fiore, 85), N.Amoruso, Vlaovic (Van Utrecht, 75).
Fiorentina — Toldo, Carnasciali (Robbiati, 66), Padalino, L.Amoruso, Serena, Piacentini, Bigica, Rui Costa, Schwarz, Batistuta, Baiano (Banchelli, 80).
Att.: 16,000.