italy always lose in the worst way: not getting stomped 4-0 but always so anguishingly close to winning. think of all the majors tournaments in the 90s and now the 2000s( except the 1996 euros) and then thikn how they lost! all matches lost on pks or in the even more heartbreaking matches( france euros 2000 and korea WC 2002) by giving up the tying goal with only seconds left in regulation time and the golden goal later) whY????
i asked myself the same question (like most of u probably) and i think the reason could be that Italy dont kill the match when they can and spend most of the time defending and Hoping for a good chance in attack. i mean the problem are the coaches. they have and give to the team a sort of catholic attitude, they want to stay pure and always await a help from God . thats it. trapattoni's holy water at the wc was just a clear evidence. i thought about this especially considering why other nation clubs or NTs when they meet a very worse team usually demolish them by 5 , 6 , 7 or more goals while italians almost never win scoring more than 2 or 3 goals...... even if they could, they slow down the game considering it already over while other teams always look energic, angry and merciless, like english clubs for instance. i think that chances like vieri's against korea or the 2 of del piero against france are missed cos they are a too heavy responsability when u realize that u will probably have no more considering the style of play of ur team.....and anyway when u defend in that way (a great way for sure) u give everything, but if u are good enough (like italy usually is) and dont get goals and neither score as a consequence of ur style of play, it's very likely that u go to extra time and at that point players are exhausted, more than other team's and the unrelenting happens, u get a goal and its over. i just remember how italians were weary in euro 2000 final and in last 3 ,4 minuts u could see cannavaro being overcome easiestly by wiltord (or whoever else). he couldnt give more. and after the tied , it was clear that it was already over. anyway they had been great. even vieri in 2002 was almost collapsing after the run to deflect the ball and shot it over the bar.
Not italy but Holland has the most loses in a worst way. By penalties. And they have more bad luck then the italians during a penalty shout-out so stop complaining. Our relief is that we have a better team then italy. (I hate their defensive play.)
Do you really think Holland have a better team? I'm starting to think that they are vastly overrated. If you compare Italy to Holland it's not even close. Italy are always at the final tournaments and always challenge for a trophy. Holland OTOH, consistently crash out during the tournament or even get knocked out in qualifying. Holland have a lot of talent but that doesn't make a great team. Italy always play as a better team than Holland. And if you look at the Italians they are not lacking talent either. There are only a few nations where you can say they have more talent then Italy. Holland might be one(it's debatable) but they certainly don't have a better team than Italy.
Holland DOES have a better team on paper AND on the field then Italy. The 6-0 should have silenced every critic. If you look at the tournament we seem to play extreme good football (the earlier years, 1998, 2000, ) but have the bad luck of penalties not to progress. During euro2000 we gave the italians a good old football lesson. Since then the team have been improving. Look at out stars dude.. v.d Vaart, Wesley snijder, andy van der meyde, heitinga, bouma.. the youngsters together with other stars like seedorf, davids, van bommel, van nistelrooy, jaap stam, overmars, kluivert, makaay... OWNS the italians by far. Stop dreaming dude. Why o why were the coaches of france, england, portugal and even henry so anxious to avoid the orange men?
Dude, Italy won that game. Played the last 90 minutes a man down, on the road, in a tough environment and Holland still couldn't crack through for even one goal. What lesson did Holland teach Italy? How to lose games with everything in your favor?
Your italian formation was 5-4-1 or something. I grant you the fact that you have the best defenders of the world. So there you go. And we did give a football lesson how to back the opponent to the wall. Face it, we were far better. You were lucky not to have a second player send out with red. And taking penalties is just a gamble. We did got TWO penalties. That means that your defenders couldn't hold our strikers. In a few years your italian side will be grandpa's and you'll have little talent to substitute the likes of maldini and co MUHAHAHAHA I guess I do feel sorry for you.
How long have you been watching football? i'm guessing the first match you watched was the Holland/Scotland match. Am I right?
LOL!! Good that he retired. This is an example how I hate the italian football. 70% of the guys you have playing for italy now won't be at the world cup!! LOLLLLLLLL
It also shows that you know absolutely nothing about Italian football. So I will end my conversation with you here. Hopefully you are just a sockpuppet having some fun because if your not. Well, then your an idiot.
Well said, I agree with you completley. The one thing that I do aprreciate though in the vast history of Italian national soccer is our willingness to fight against the 'strongest'. I think we have the best record of any other nation against NT's like Brazil, Germany, Argentina, and (I'm not sure) Holland. There is an identifiable trend against strong sides which gives birth to attractive attributes like: execution, focus, determination and sacrifice. Italy, if they can put aside ego's and other personal nonsense, will do more than go far, they can fukin win it time and again if they really wanted too. And just for those limey blokes I bloody relish the games where Italy play England cause 9 times out of 10 we freakin ruin you.
As a french, trust me, we would be much more worry meeting Italy than any other team in Euro. I/We really think that we have the team to crush any opposition during Euro. Italy is the only team that noone can roll over. It is always a tough fight. Btw, on paper, i rate Italy above Holland easely. They are probably equivalent in midfield and attack but Holland has no defense which is, of course, not Italy's case.
Think what you want, but I'm proud to be Dutch and we are better than the italians on paper. Can you match players like v.d Vaart, Wesley Snijder, Arjen Robben, Heitinga, De Jong with italians of the same age? No? That's what I already knew. Oh, great result! (Italy - Spain: 1-1) That's the same Spain that lost against Greece (Greece ended FIRST in the group) and Holland beat Greece with a B-team Now good luck in Portugal. You're going to need it.
It was interesting to see penalties between Holland and Italy, somebody would finally win one. Another lost cause in penalties in Mexico. But I think there is more that luck involved in penalties. When do you ever see a German miss a penalty kick? ARG and GER seem to always win their shootouts. I do agree that both ITL and HOL have had bad "luck" in getting eliminated the way they do.
There are a lot of factors involving penalties that can influence the result. Fatiqueness, concentration, goalkeeper, luck. You can't train on them. It has a psychological background combined with concentration that cause a penaltygoal. Italy were also unlucky in euro1996 where they lost to penalties. Interesting? Yes. Fair? Yes. But they weren't the better team to advance.
"on paper". What exactly does that mean? You've already confessed your ignorance about the current Italian team. The Spain game included a lot of Italy's B players and was mainly about celebrating Roberto Baggio's last game (perhaps) for the Azzurri. I don't pretend to know much about the Dutch team, except for players like Seedorf and Davids who played in Serie A recently. I do know the Dutch are always very good, and it was a surprise that Italy got by them on their home soil last time around, and even more surprising that they failed to qualify for Korea/Japan. Anyway, this is the reason we have these big tournaments every couple of years - to see which team is the best where it matters - on the field.
I agree that psychological background is important. That partly why some teams (Germany) always win and others MEX, HOL, ITL always/usually lose. But I do think you can train on it. I would not be surprised if the Germans could go though an entire shootout blindfolded and still win because they have practiced it so much.
During Euro 2000 Holland gave Italy a lesson in how not to score on 6 penalty tries! And I dont think the coaches who are anxious to avoid Holland look forward to playing Italy... And no, sorry, Italy has lost a WC final, semifinal, and quarterfinal on penalties. That is worse than what Holland has done.