Dear Santa: A Christmas wishlist from Parma

Date: 24th December 2014 at 4:27pm
Written by:

Dear Santa,

Roberto Donadoni here. I’m the head coach of Parma and I’m afraid I’ve got quite a lot to ask from you this year.

You see, everything was going extremely well but since the summer it has all fallen apart! We managed to finish sixth last season which was great, but this year things have gone from bad to worse and we’re bottom of the league with only six points…

Firstly, I think we need something to stop the rot. We’ve had a few moments so far when we thought we might have cracked it, like when we beat Inter 2-0 at the start of November, but then we just went and got beaten 7-0 by Juventus in the next match. I’ve heard that some oil-based primer would be good for preventing rot so that is item number one on my list. Maybe I can try smearing that on some of my players before matches from now on. We might as well try…

Speaking of players, what I really need is a new defence. Like I said, we did very well last season, but since then our defenders seem to have lost interest and the likes of Felipe, Alessandro Lucarelli and Pedro Mendes haven’t impressed many people as we have conceded 36 goals in 16 matches! That’s an average of 2.25 per game Santa! I can assure you that is not very good, even if you’re not very interested in football…

We finally have Gabriel Paletta back, who is very important to us but had a back injury for a long time. If you could send him lots of vitamins and some fruit and veg to make sure he stays strong and healthy that would be much appreciated.

Another man who is very important to us is Antonio Cassano. The problem is I’m worried that the pressure might get to him a bit as we rely on him very, very heavily. I’ve made him play more minutes than anyone else this season in the hope he will provide us with some magic and sometimes he does, he’s our top scorer with five goals after all. What I would like for him though is some beta-blockers, just in case he starts to get a bit too stressed out about how much we depend on him.

My next present idea is nice and easy – I would just like a photo album of the 2013/14 season if that’s ok. I feel that maybe if I gathered all the players around and we reminisced about the good times we had last year then maybe they might remember how to put together some consistent form again.

If not, I fear I’m out of ideas. If you’re feeling extra generous, you could always dump Marco Parolo, Cristian Molinaro and Amauri back down the chimney as we do miss them quite a lot!

We’ll leave you some prosciutto di Parma and a big block of Parmesan to say thank you.

Regards,

Roberto Donadoni

 

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