Spain-Italy Quarterfinal Euro 2008 [R] part 2

I can't believe the fans who are saying it was a great game. The game sucked. The best game was czech republic vs turkey

 

From the other thread..

Whether some so called "experts" ie-the Andy Grays of the world dislike the way Italy played tonight, doesn't mean that it isn't an effective way of playing. With a defense weakened by the loss of Cannavaro and the decline in form of Materazzi, the azzurri still managed to stop Spain scoring for the whole game.

Spain's biggest asset is their attack, they scored EIGHT goals in the first three games and Villa is the topscorer in this competition. Did they score tonight? The answer is no. Spain had a reputation for being the "goalscorers" of the tournament going into this game and the azzurri cut that off completely.

Whether the armchair "I want twenty goals and monster trucks" fan reconigses the tactical skill of that is irrelevent. If the azzurri had a striker in good form up there instead of that horses ass Toni then it may be a different story right now. Different teams require different tactics; Italy's games in the group stages were some of the best in this competition, so much for "boring".

 

Maybe those fans love the tactical game...

Congrats to Spain on reaching the 1st semi-final since 1984, finally they had a little bit of fortune & good nerves!

Despite Pirlo's absence, Donadoni played way too devensively in my eyes (you could get the impression he was going for the pk's) and made the big mistake of nominating Di Natale (I knew he wouldn't manage to control his nerves after being booed) instead of Del Piero for the pk's!


Buona notte.

 

Good post. Some fans just cannot see that. The game isn't supposed to be played in an attacking style. The game is not supposed to be played in any way. I believe its best played to a team's strengths. Italy's strength (though not as much in the group stage) has been to frustrate strikers, close down their opponents options and minimize their goal-scoring opportunities. We are not strong in attacking, hence, we do not play like Russia or the Dutch though I think our attacking mindedness did raise in this tournament compared to years past.

Just quit the bashing everyone, take your victory with humbleness, and good luck

 

It doesn't require great quality to stop a team from scoring as Greece proved.

Equally, teams with great scoring records don't score in every game, as Netherland proved. Against Italy, they netted 3 times. Against Russia (which Spain beat comfortably), they scored one from a free kick in the 86th minute.

Pray tell, in which game did Italy play well?

 

Thank you for your kind words sir.

 

Italy played for Pks, they got what they deserve. Donadoni is the biggest moron to ever manage a NT, especially one that just won the World Cup. He completely ruined the team chemistry and didn't know how to get the best out of these players. He's always been a loser, and now he leaves a loser hopefully for good.

 

Actually, the only negative point of the games is that Italy did manage to get through the group stages and only lost in penalties. That means Donadoni might actually get to keep his job which isn't good news for Italy or football fans!

 

I take it you didn't watch the France and Romania games? Even in the game that the azzurri lost to Holland they played quite well.

Defending doesn't require quality? Thats the most ridiculous claim I've ever heard somebody make about football. If that was the case there would be no need to pay for defenders or goalkeepers, football would be a 0-0-11 game and the likes of Baresi and Zoff would never have played. The quality of a striker is scoring, the quality of a defender is stopping him scoring; simple. Also, since Greece lost to Spain's B team its hardly a good comparison.

In regards to Russia-Holland, compare the way the Russians played in the first two games without Andrei Arshavin and then the games with him. Hes their best player.

 

Not happening. Donadoni is gone this week. They didn't ONLY lose on penalties, they lost on tactics because of an incompetent manager didn't know how to play an effective formation and make the right substitutes.

 

Let us all hope that Toni, Di Natale and whoever the other was recover from their game-delaying injuries as well as Panucci recovered from his injury vs. Netherlands.

You score 3 goals in 4 matches (none from open play), and don't advance to the semifinals. Life is so unfair.

 

Ironically, the only game Italy played well was against Holland. Against Romania Italy played a game which is far from acceptable from the the world champion!! Compare the price tag of the Italian team with the Romanian. Hell, even the Italian bench probably cost more than the entire Romanian team (and that includes Chivu and Mutu!). I'm surprised you consider the game against Romania an acceptable performance by Italy!! In the world cup England beat T&T 2-0, but the way they played given the difference in quality of players warranted a lot of criticism amongst the fans and the media. Italy beat a bad French team, that had its best player taken off injured and reduced to 10 men; yet the French team played better and looked far more threatening!

Defending with 10 men doesn't require great quality no. Quality might help, but is far from a requisite. What did you think of Greece in 2004? How many of their players did you know? How many played in good teams? How many got paid nearly the wages of good players? They achieved great results, and they were jeered for playing what was labelled as "anti-football". And yet through defending and counter-attacking football, with one of the best defensive records in the history of the Euro, they managed to win in 2004.

 

What a relief that Italy is out. They play the most boring, unattractive soccer of any top-shelf team in the world. Their team is fully of diving pretty boys. I will never, ever, watch Italy play another full match unless they are playing USA. Congratulations Spain! Italy, please go home and stay away from my conscious for as long as possible.

 

Oh, and one more thing. If you ever want to turn a curious soul away from the beautiful game, just sit them in front of a TV when Italy is playing. Trust me, it works every time.

 

Italians diving boys? What did Villa and his mates do in the penalty box all the time?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APeL1Uk1bFk

 

No, no, no. If you want to turn off a friend to the beautiful game, have them watch an England friendly. If you want to turn them off and lose the friend, have them watch it on ppv. Nothing promises more and delivers less than England when they have nothing to play for.

As for today's game, why didn't Donadoni pull off Toni in place of Del Piero or anyone else for that matter. Toni was hopeless.

 

Italy didn't seem to mount any real threats to Spain, that was dissapointing. Spain basically kicked the ball around in midfield throughout the entire game and on occaision tryed to do something offensive, but really it was all tactics and had few moments of drama. It was lame and I wish this one could be started over from the top!

Should we blame Toni? I think a big mistake was to wait for the ball. There was nobody feeding him passes, except those crazy long balls (alla England style, funny how they criticize us ) We had zilch up front, we did not deserve to go through, I am sorry to say.

I don't really have confidence that Spain get beat Germany. I say they will beat Turkey (if that happens!) but the Turks seem to never give up. I wonder about Russia, they played a super game against Holland.

 

When the country you are very passionate for goes out its always upsetting but for the first time since I can remember I'm not even that sad, a little disappointed but thats all.

Italy went out in what is probably the most forgettable football game of the tournament when you consider all the entertaining displays the world has witnessed in the last two weeks.

Everybody canceled each other out all over the pitch for 2 hours of football and basically all we were left with was a celebrity contest between Iker and Buffon.

Does Spain deserve to advance? Of course they do; they played as best they could and gave it their all and its not their fault that Italy had inferior players in several positions and were nowhere near the competitive conditioning that saw them win the world cup.

I will say this though: despite people insinuating that the winner of this match will reach the finals and win need a serious reality check. Competitively speaking, sides like Turkey, Germany and Russia are much more prone for victory than either Italy or Spain could ever hope to be.

 

well first went my dream germany-holland final now there goes the italy-germany final. I have not watched the game yet so I won't make any comments...although I did see the pagliuca moment buffon had

 

That ref Fandell certainly should not have stopped action 2 times I count, when those with "injuries" to say it generously went down...that was shameful on both parties behalf.

The cameras certainly showed that Villa went down on physical contact...

 

Italy during the WC played nice football. Not an "attacking" team but certainly closer to that than "defensive" and there was no catenaccio in sight.

And I don't know how people who watched the France game from these euros can call italy defensive at all. There were some very good attacking moves in that game from Italy. And in the Holland game it was the same plus a crap defence.

Of course it is easy to call them defensive and banish them to hell without the benefit of following them properly for the last few years, after seeing one game like this.