Damn this Italy reminds me of Greece 2004! Good job keeping faith in Eder, Conte and proving us wrong. Hopefully Conte rests the squad and we get to see some fresh faces vs Ireland.
I like flawed, it works And only in the Italy forum. Anyway, we need to hate on a few more players so they keep scoring. Chago Moch over due for a goal
What transpire against Sweeden today is VINTAGE AZZURRI. For those who complain about the 'boring/defensive' match today, clearly you are either a new fan of the Azzurri or a long time fans who have clearly bought into the mainstream false narrative that attractive football is the only way to play. Even in those times where Italy could call on names such as Totti, Del Piero, Baggio, Vieri, etc they would still play similar to what they did today.
even if they did catch us on points in the euros first tie breaker is head to head and we beat them so they can rack up all the goals they want but we will have them on head to head which comes first in the WC though for instance the first tie breaker is Goal Differential in ALL group matches regardless of who the opponent was in the euro first tie breaker would be GD only in matches among the teams in question ( head to head ) but yes....i'll concede that belgium has the most realistic chance of getting 6pts out of their final 2 matches the irish could pass us if they managed 2 wins but again , like you too said , unlikely
Its not his long balls, he can hardly pass unless it is a back pass or horizontal. He legit looks like he is playing hurt, rewatch the game, his passes on the ground going forward are turn overs or played into akward places with the incorrect amount of pace of the ball.
pretty sure Marco got the flu, he was on the bench but i remember seeing a photo of him standing up holding the canopy over bench with both arms and he looked like he wanted to be on the field.
That remains to be seen. For that to be true, we have to win like they did in 2004. Keep your fingers crossed and say your prayers!
There's way too much negativity on here, i'm not a fan of Eder at all but i give credit where credit is due. Whoever said Eder didn't do anything the whole match maybe you should go watch the match again. Eder was a beastly work horse, constantly pressing the defense, causing bad passes, preventing forward passes and even had some decent creativity. Let's talk about Candreva and how every single one of his crosses went straight to the keeper, or how about the retarded long balls by Pelle? Giakk was low key but still worked his ass off, made some decent runs. Boring performance but we've never been an "exciting" team, i'll take the 6 points and momentum.
Except those teams had, A) Better defense B) Better Midfield C) Totti, Del Piero, Baggio, Vieri, etc. There's no one to carry this team in a pinch when offense is needed, and Conte has snuffed out and ignored the players capable. I agree they need to rely on their defense and who cares about catering to the attractive football mentality, a win is a win and Conte has grind out 2. But Belgium choked and Sweden is terrible, the team haven't been tested at all this tournament and haven't really been tested the entire qualification. What happens when they have to score a goal? Or two? What happens when they have to open up? Unlike those teams and players you mentioned can this team turn on the offense when needed? Maybe, but Conte hasn't had to play that type of soccer in 2 years, and hasn't played those type of players. The knockout stages are most likely going to be Croatia, Germany, France. This style will be punished by all three teams, the defense isn't good enough to absorb that pressure and as soon as one of the back 3 misses a game due to cards or injury the whole system comes crashing down. Conte has had his opportunities to put in the likes of Insigne and SES to try and open it up and has chosen not to and just keeps grinding. Now if they go down against Croatia or France or Germany you now put absurd pressure on young players to carry an offense after they've been ignored for years.
The Azzurri today: 65 minutes of great defensive effort, and then the last 25 minutes we turned the heat on, with a crossbar hit and a goal. That's vintage Italy, and an excellent victory. Even better was the opening game against a valuable Belgian team. I'm a dual citizen of Italy and the United States - American born, from an Italian-born father who transmitted the citizenship to me. My Italian is lousy. I understand 95-98% of spoken Italian, 99% of written Italian, but I speak less well and write it very poorly so I don't even try. I don't have a lot of opportunity to follow Italian football. So, my fellow (real) Italians, tell me - wasn't this supposed to be one of the weakest teams we've ever fielded in the Euros? Certainly I didn't have this impression. I thought we did quite well overall in the first two games, although we did lack creativity on offense. But tell me, what are your expectations? How far will we go? Could we be sleepers and compete for the title as dark horses?
Who knows? I fear Croatia in the next phase though b/c their style of play is predicated on width and crosses which is a weakness of our 3-5-2. Weaknesses in our side thus far have been our LW and no 9. But Florenzi and Zaza may have provided the solutions. Overall Italys performance is a victory of southern European football (tactics and technique) vs northern European football (speed and athleticism).
My prediction was wrong. ******** I thought it was gonna be 59-0 I would say sure but I don't watch Kangaroos run around
Every tournament we can always seriously compete. Sometimes we get ********ed over by suspect officiating other times by lack of preparation. We always are written off by experts and even our own fans. I always believe we can win tho
I think Zaza deserves some credit on his goal after watching it 10 times. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Watched the match after work on repeat (ESPN 2). The bottom line is that Italy will fail/succeed on the basis of the Juve 4 plus De Rossi. This is the heart of the team. Other than Candreva, no other offensive player in the starting 11 offers that much going forward if we are being honest. Some people here are worried about the possibility of Italy having to chase a game if they go down, well Conte is banking on that never happening. After watching these two fixtures, It's not out of the realm of possibility that his gamble pays off. This defense can certainly go 7 games and not give up a goal or go down a goal. Saying that, I would certainly be worried if this squad had to chase a game at any point I would go 4 3 3 against Ireland. Play Ogbonna and Darmian at CB. De Sciglio and Florenzi at FB. Immobile/Zaza at CF. Insigne and Bernardeschi on the wings. Sturaro, Motta, and whoever in mid. Give the defense some time off, and the young guys playing time. While we don't have defenders on the level of Nesta, Cannavaro, Baresi, and Maldini anymore....we are still (by far) the greatest nation at defending.
i didn't forget that biscotto....it was in my mind the whole time and anytime those turds tried with the theatrics I was really hoping we could score and knock them out the tournament despite the game having draw written all over it. we trolled them for 2004....made them think they were getting a draw here only for Eder to score a late goal on purpose due to the evil genius of Conte Conte = Big Evil
Although you are right that those teams have obviously better midfield, but defense it's quite equal. And in regards to Totti, ADP, Baggio, and Vieri....Baggio and Vieri never won a thing on international level, Del Piero was a sub on the 2006 team, and Totti...please enlighten and others in this board at which point during the 2006 run did he create flair? The most flair or creativity you would get out of the Azzurri EVER are good crosses, run into spaces, occasional One-Twos and through-ball, and what I call '5-second Magic' once, rarely twice, in a tourney....ADP goal against Germany, Balotelli in 2012, and Bonucci's pass this year. Look everyone including me has been calling for more creativity in the line-up; one of which is Insigne for Eder. Though none of our wishes didn't come true, the results did. So many of us kind of gave up criticizing, slowly accepting the reality of the situation and, love the Azzurri regardless.
You know Eder runs his tail off all game. Always has and he has proven to score goals from nowhere like he did today and vs Bulgaria. Let's gove credit to Zaza he ran his tail off as well and his hustle to get a head on that ball for Eder was great as well. Heck Chiellini's throw was also on point. The boys were comfortable most of the match. We will suffer at times no doubt and you can say if Zlatan wasn't inexplicably in an offside position as the wide man (on a sitter he missed anyways), we would singing a much different tune. But international tournaments are like this for the most part. You grind and take the 1 chance in mos matches. Thought the defense was excellent again, 0 shot on target! The midfueld hustled, struggled to put passes together but they made sure to always be in front of the ball. Florenzi was much better than Darmian and should start. Pelle has been poor but he also hasn't had much to work with. Giak was poor but again delivered a game breaking ball to Parolo, whom I though was one of the best players on the pitch. Parolo is there because he fights for every ball, can break up play and can score many ways offensively. He scored 9 goals for Lazio last season, some with his head, some on the volley, some first time shots in the box and some from outside of the box. Conte doesn't have any prolific scorer but he has guys that can score in various ways while not compromising the team defensively. If we're going to win this I think we'll need to win a penalty shootout at some point but hopefully the guys keep finding a way. Morale must be sky high at this point.