Yes. Here's a good update, from Football Italia: http://football-italia.net/19605/italy-rest-balotelli-training I was surprised to read that Prandelli continues to try out a 3-5-2, too. If we use it vs. Spain, Italy will be the only team at the Euros using such a shape.
It sounds like Montolivo left quick shaken after seeing the museum. I can't blame him, you'd have to be one desensitized individual not to be effected by it. Even though it was about something very bad, this kind of thing could make them forget about the scandal going on in Italy and clear their heads/re-focus on the task at hand.
It's also possible that Montolivo experienced it differently than his team-mates since he's half German.
Well its footballs pet project if you agree with it or not thats up to you just telling you why they went there.
What's interesting is that I think the Italy we see against Croatia and Ireland will be very different from the one we saw against Spain. I don't see us taking quite as conservative or defensive an approach in the next two matches.
Italy played a very sound game against Spain, but I agree with Forzaabruzzo... the Italy we see in the next 2 matches might look vastly different. I expect more ball possession and a much less defensive looking team.
Last 2 posts I cant believe what I read. Italy defensive? are you guys thick? Italy played an attacking game vs Spain. Morons.
Ball possession: Spain 60% Italy 40% Italy didn't go into a shell and just rely on the counter attack, but I wouldn't say there were in attack mode either. They were being conservative and it would be stupid not to do that against a possession team like Spain. Italy were opportunistic and could have won the game, but there is no way they were taking the ball and dominating possession and attack. It's going to look very conservative compared to what we see on Thursday.
Those numbers don't really indicate what happened. We had the best of play until we scored around the 60th minute. Then Spain were the dominant side. And both sides had opportunities spread throughout the match. You can say that we played a conservative, possession-style game, for the most part. Towards the end, we got a little too defensive, for my liking at least.
If we can play for 90 minutes the way we played for the first 45 today I would agree. I'm not sure why we stopped pressuring them. There seemed to be more goals for us. It reminds me of some of our teams from the past to be honest.