Italian Football / Perfect Punter / 30 September 2009 / Leave a comment

A stormy night in Italy reminds our blogger that sometimes it's right to simply follow your senses...

"I decided for a week to stop my cautious trading approach and try to rediscover that feeling of judging when a bet is right. The best analogy I can think of is when you hit a golf ball sweetly, or time a cover drive perfectly."

After writing last week about instinct, I thought a lot about the punter that I used to be before I started this Perfect Punter project. Definitely more reckless than now, but also more instinctive, as there is a fine line between those two states of mind. So, with that line from Patrick Veitch in mind, I decided for a week to stop my cautious trading approach and try to rediscover that feeling of judging when a bet is right. The best analogy I can think of is when you hit a golf ball sweetly, or time a cover drive perfectly. Both feel effortless, and you can't work out quite how you did it, but the heavens align and you know that it's right.

I travelled to Sicily last week with this thought. My feeling about Palermo against Roma was that the game would produce goals. Palermo tend to attack from the off at home, and Roma, for all that Claudio Ranieri has tried to instil defensive sensibilities, can only respond in one way. And then my plane wobbled, wobbled some more, and I looked out of the window and realised why. Palermo was enduring a storm, and once I'd reached the city centre, I found that it had already lasted for 24 hours. The streets were flooded, the umbrella sellers were out in force, but even they were being ignored, as the ferocity of the weather meant that the multicoloured bits of flimsiness that they throw your way for a Euro simply wouldn't stand up to it.

Getting to the game on the bus proved to be a soggy nightmare, and standing outside the Renzo Barbera with my hair plastered to my head and my clothes soaked through I don't think I've ever looked more like Jack Douglas, felt less like doing a commentary, or indeed thought less about punting.

The weather was obviously going to have an influence on the pitch, and that would have a big bearing on the outcome of the game. I've written before about the importance of placing yourself inside the stadium before having a bet, and last Wednesday I was in the fortunate position of standing pitchside while the Palermo and Roma players gingerly inspected. The pitch wasn't as bad as you might have thought, the rain had slickened it up into a grass covered ice rink, and you could see both sets of players joking with each other, Totti and Miccoli in particular.

The two star attackers clearly felt that it was going to be their night, and both sets of players were going to give it a go. The home crowd was already making serious noise, and the rain had been joined by thunder and the lightning which was starting to crackle over the Monte Pellegrino, the mountain which overlooks this remarkable stadium. If an icy wind on a drab Saturday in Bolton tells you that a game will finish 0-0, nature was sending out an altogether different message here, that this would be a night to remember.

I know that all of this sounds impossibly naïve, and I must admit that I was starting to question my sanity as I told my followers on Twitter to lump on there being goals in this game, but I don't believe that the Perfect Punter makeup is simply about being cool and collected and endlessly sensible. There has to be a large chunk of that, of course there does, but if you're in the right position to judge, a feeling that "there's going to be bedlam here" is every bit as valid as "X team have averaged 1.77 goals in their home games, whereas Y have only averaged 0.42 away from home in January." It's the appropriate use of instinct and analysis which will move us closer to the perfection that we're all looking for.

The game, as many of you will know, finished 3-3, so that instinctive feeling was proved right, and as Francesco Totti scored the equalising penalty two minutes from the end, the lightning flashed again to produce the perfect sporting picture, and ram home the point. I stood next to Totti outside the Roma dressing room afterwards, and heard him and Walter Zenga have a friendly chat. Zenga smiled and said: "Hey Francesco, what about that? It was one of those nights, no?" Totti smiled and gave him a hug: "Yes, Walter, one of those nights." The players knew all along what would happen, all we have to do is touch the hems of their garments and hope that some of that knowledge rubs off. Then, with apologies to Totti, this punting lark will be as easy as sucking your thumb.

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Tags: Palermo, Renzo Barbera, Roma