Spirit and Confidence

t's fair to say AC Milan had a rough start to the season, winning just one match -- and that one against bottom-dwelling Cesena. But the rossoneri re-asserted their right to be in the running for this year's title with Saturday's 3-0 thrashing of Palermo.Goals by Antonio Nocerino, Robinho and Antonio Cassano brought about a rare sound in Serie A these days: the noise of the crowd at the San Siro. And with Inter Milan's loss to Catania earlier in the day, the Milan supporters couldn't have been more thrilled.

The match started off fairly evenly, and it wasn't hard to imagine that Palermo might get some, or even all, of the points from the game -- particularly after Thiago Silva went off injured in the 34th minute, replaced by Daniele Bonera. But the loss of a key defender only seemed to energize Milan, with their goal coming just five minutes later, in the 39th. Nocerino, a late transfer-day acquisition from Palermo, scored against his former club, knocking in Alberto Aquilani's header from close range.

But Milan, perhaps wary of a Palermo equalizer, elected to stop on the visitors' pride a bit more. Zlatan Ibrahimovic muscled his way up the pitch and spotted Robinho racing up the left flank. Receiving the pass, the Brazilian easily continue to outpace the Palermo players, and easily fired it past Alexandros Tzorvas in goal.

Palermo had clearly had enough by that point, and it wasn't even the 60th minute. Despite attempts by caretaker manager Devis Mangia to change things up -- replacing Abel Hernandez with Mauricio Pinilla, shifting to a 4-4-1-1 with the removal of Fabrizio Miccoli in favor of Edgar Alvarez -- nothing brought them even close to goal.

Cassano drove the final nail into Palermo's coffin (will it be Mangia resting in the coffin? Only Zamparini knows) with his goal in the 63rd minute. The forward had a shot ruled out for offside just a few minutes before, so he made sure this one counted, evading a Palermo tackle and sending a hard shot into the far corner. 3-0, and despite Ibrahimovic's attempts to find a goal of his own, that's where it ended for Milan.

And so the rossoneri finally find another win -- will others falter, making room for Milan to claw their way back up the table? Or maybe we should all realize there are more than thirty matches left to play, and leave the scudetto talk for the dark days of winter.