went back to catenaccio after we scored piss off played one of the best halves of football ive ever seen only to revert back to old ways. They'll never learn.
I've heard this from a few others and someone in the FIGC (I believe) said the same thing but I did not see anything that great from the Azzurri yesterday, certainly nothing like "one of the best halves of football."
Very flawed assessment in my opinion. The dramatic change in the 2nd half came from Croatia changing shape and finally marking Pirlo. Prandelli was not at all able to counter that and we suffered the entire half. He also for the most part made substitutions (while wrong) to try and get in the game. You don't switch out Thiago Motta with Montolivo if you are content to try and defend.
Capello: Italy's 3-5-2 is a defensive formation "The 3-5-2 formation is, as I have always said, a more defensive system to play because normally if you defend, then you defend with five defenders in one line," Capello was quoted as saying on the official Uefa website. "In the past you played with a sweeper and two players whose job it is to mark; [they are] the two so-called stoppers. Now this sweeper plays on the same line as his team-mates. So you've always got one player behind you to cover and you play with five men behind the ball which is a very defensive system. "But at the same time you have the two wing-backs who can create a lot of danger down the flanks. "I have to say that when I won the domestic title with Roma we played with this system, too. I had Cafu on the right and [Vincent] Candela on the left."
The fact that makes the 3-5-2 so unpredictable in today's game is the wing backs, who actually play deeper as a winger and way more offensive than a classic full back. That forces either the opponent's full back to leave his position to cover the wing back or the opponent's winger to track back often and deeper as he's used to. The problem is that it's much harder to pressure the other team or to siege them in their own half. The both strikers can easily be isolated if they don't track back constantly or the playmaker isn't able to deliver accurate balls and stays deep. The 3-5-2 can be very steady in defense with multiple options to receive the ball and with a good long ball distributor and good wing backs very dangerous coming over the flanks. In theory it's also nice to prevent fast counter attacks through the center. But it's hard to break down a good 4-4-2 and it's even harder to play possession based football up the field against 4-5-1. It's made to achieve a draw or to grind out a close victory against evenly or better talented teams. Not sure if that's the right recept for a tournament like the Euros where you have to win or die and 9/10 teams are playing varities of 4-5-1 and 4-4-2. I doubt that I wrote something new to most in this forum but I'm very interested in a modern way to interprete the 3-5-2 and the potential its offers.
pepe shoulda been called up to play instead of maggio. this team is really hurting cuz maggio is useless and italy cant really attack from that side. Only decent moved from maggio's side were thru cassano. This team cannot play defensive and hold the scoreline...they need at least a 2 goal cushion.
you are right...Italy hasn't anymore top defenders like we used to some years ago...we have good midfielders instead...
As others have alluded, we did not play catenaccio in the second half. Nor did we play defensively. We simply were content to sit on the one goal lead and let the foot off the gas pedal. Croatia capitalized. Our mistake was to let up. And our biggest mistake of this whole tournament is that we haven't been able to take our chances. If we did that, we'd easily have at least four points.
Sitting back on a one goal lead and taking the foot off the gas isn't defensive? yes it is. They were trying to counter attack like we always did when leading one nil. Did croatia play better in the 2nd half? yes they did. But also because we allowed them too.
Pepe is one of the biggest flops and waste of space ive ever seen play for the azzurri. No way that hack should have been called up or ever be called up again.
Don't know what you consider good football then. 11 shots to 2 and 53 percent possession in a half of football against decent opposition is unheard of for the Azzurri.
Lol....watch Italy sneak into the quarters, beat France there, beat Germany in the semis, and beat Spain in the final......God-willing.
53-47 possession is basically a wash. And, against Croatia, such a possession advantage is nothing to write home about. And, 11 shots to 2? Who gives a shit. We only forced the keeper into a few saves in the first half. Most were not on goal and the a few of them were directly at him (Marchisio's, Balotelli's, etc.). Our only goal came off a set piece because of an individual effort by Pirlo. Whoop-a-dee-doo. I was happy with how we looked in the first half but "one of the best halves of football"? Sorry, if I have higher standards.
Italy has some kind of stamina problem and this is probably why they played defensive in the 70th because most of the team was gassed and more than likely, they feared of getting burned on the counter attack. Bringing on Monto was a huge mistake (my heart dropped when i seen him coming on) and Nocerino would have been a much better choice. Also i beleive that the reason Prandelli subbed off Balo is he feared that Balo was going to lose it and get sent off otherwise it was obvious that Cassano should have come off for Di Natale.
I disagree, there were absolutely no signs that this was going to happen. Balotelli did not look nervous like he did against Spain. The referee hadn't spoken to him once during the game. And he hadn't committed any bad challenges that might lead you to believe he could do something stupid and get carded. In my opinion Prandelli simply botched the sub thinking maybe Cassano could pick off Di Natale like he did against Spain. Unfortunately at that point he hadn't come to grips with the damage putting Montolivo on was doing.
If we get through I think well win the lot. Only way I see us losing to france is on penalties. Well beat Germany in the final if we beat the french
I'm a bit afraid of germany. they are extremly solid and Mario Gomez is on fire, a real bomber. France plays better then expected.... back to the irish game, we had some problems vs Eire with Trappatoni in the qualification. but i remember, normally Eire was never a problem for Italia. even Balotelli scores tomorow.
hmmm well they beat us in 1994 and in a friendly last year. I think well beat them tho, if we cant that speaks for itself. We had a crap team anyway in qualification for 2010. Balotelli under an injury cloud I hear? Probably still play. Germany are machines but I think we can keep our record in tact vs them. We
I like our chances now that we are in the quarterfinals. I think we need a few things to happen and we will have a legitimate chance. First is the defense - they need to be very solid for the rest of the tournament. Then Balotelli needs to continue playing well and find the goal a few more times. Finally we must stop letting up in the second half. Given that Holland is out, we already played Spain well, and our record against Germany in major competitions, I think we have as good a chance as any team to win this tournament.