Match report: Milan 1 - Bologna 0

• Goals Scored: Flamini 8' (See photo above-- the ball is visible just over Flamini's shoulder)
• What happened: Milan scored early and held on to win. They are in first place-- eight points ahead of Inter and nine ahead of Napoli with three matches left.
• What it was like to watch this match: Milan are good; Bologna are not. Milan had a reason try hard; Bologna did not. Milan scored early; Bologna did not. Milan had many other chances to score; Bologna did not. Therefore, watching this match was nothing less than pure torture-- for eighty-two+ minutes Milan were one stupid/flukey/extraordinary play away from disaster.
• Number of wide open headers Bologna missed during the second half: 2 (Like I said-- pure torture)
• Bologna player sent off undeservedly with a straight red card late in the second half: Della Rocca
• Evidence that there is a conspiracy to give Milan the Scudetto this season: Della Rocca's sending off, which completely ended Bologna's attacking threat. A penalty awarded to Milan against Napoli on February 28th for a debatable handball.
• Evidence that there is a conspiracy to prevent Milan from winning the Scudetto this season: The three game suspension given to Ibrahimovic for talking disrespectfully to the linesman at the end of Milan's 3-0 victory over Sampdoria.
• Milan players who made their debut today: Giacomo Beretta
• Milan players whose wives/girlfriends have apparently had babies recently: Antonio Cassano, Robinho, Thiago Silva, Urby Emanuelson
• What this match teaches us: Milan will win the Scudetto this season.

Below: Before the match, a video of Pope John Paul II was shown at the San Siro.

Below: Flamini doesn't score many goals, and certainly none as important as this one.

Match report: Bologna 0 - Milan 0

• Goals scored: None
• What happened: Milan controlled the ball for almost the entire game, passing it around to each other in the middle of the field. Ronaldinho hit the crossbar, Ambrosini hit right where the goal post meets the crossbar. Bologna occasionally counter-attacked. No one scored.
• Things I have never seen before: Milan wearing red shorts (see photo above); newly signed Mancini starting for Milan.
• Things I have not seen in a long time: Bonera back from injury.
• Milan players who did well today: Pirlo, Abate
• Milan players who basically did nothing worth mentioning today: Ronaldinho, Seedorf, Borriello
• Milan players who are still injured: Pato, Nesta
• Bizarre interruptions to the broadcast on Fox Soccer Channel: In the 81st minute, the broadcast signal abruptly changed to C-SPAN, where Senator John McCain was talking in a Senate committee room. Then it changed to the Emergency Alert System, on which Civil Authorities were broadcasting a Required Monthly Test. About one minute of the game was interrupted. I was hoping that Milan would score during that time, but they didn't.
• What this match teaches us: Sometimes scoring goals seems easy, and sometimes it doesn't.

There is really no point in posting highlights today.

Photo I wished I could find #1

In a recent post, I stated that I wished I could find a photo of Bologna's Nicola Mingazzini playing with his head all bandaged up. This morning I searched Google Images again and found such a photo--

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The search terms I used were Mingazzini and head.

Match report: Milan 1 - Bologna 0

• Goals scored: Seedorf 75'
• Bologna's game plan: To send no players into Milan's half of the field; to play defense and only defense; to achieve a 0-0 draw.
• How Bologna's game plan worked: Quite well, except for one brief moment late in the second half when they actually sent players forward to try to score. Milan immediately scored on the counter-attack.
• Number of Milan players who hit the goal post: 2 (Pato and Inzaghi)
• Number of Milan players who found themselves with the ball, unmarked, eight feet away from goal with no goalie in sight but who managed to shoot the ball well over the crossbar: 1 (Gattuso)
• How Clarence Seedorf finally scored: Seedorf got the ball. He ran at the defender. Then he ran around the defender. After that, Seedorf ran at the goalie. Finally he kicked the ball past the goalie and into the net.
• Last time before today that Milan scored a goal in Serie A play: August 22, 2009
• Photo I wish I could find: Bologna's Nicola Mingazzini playing most of today's match with his head bandaged.
• What this match teaches us: Only the very young or the very old can score for Milan this season.