I know I am in the minority, but I am not impressed by the tons of goals being scored. Football is a game of offense and defense, and I haven't seen much defense being played. Ironically, the teams playing the best defense and goalkeeping are not in particularly good positions (Italy and Germany). The exception to this is Denmark, who have played solid defense and have gotten great performances from Sorensen, but they are no lock to advance either. Are the days where defense dominates over? To me, Italy has the ability to demonstrate all aspects of the sport at the highest level, because their talent is so balanced offensively and defensively. But Italy and Germany have not finished their chances nearly enough. France can do this too, but their defensive efforts have not come close to years past. Where is the physical defensive play? I'm tired of seeing forwards like Rooney run rampant...some nice slide tackles will take care of him. I blame UEFA partly...as a defender you can't even make contact with offenders in the penalty box anymore. Group B has been a travesty of bad defense, and Portugal and Greece are hardly solid at the back. To see good defense, we will have to root for teams like Italy and Germany to get their attacking in order and advance.
Italy are very overrated defensively, look at the goal they gave up against Sweden and how an undermanned Denmark pulled them apart and should have finished them in the first game. The two top teams in Group B are strong defensively. In open play England are a stronger defence than Italy, it's only the set piece defending that isn't as strong. France would also be stronger than Italy defensively if Santini played Gallas in central defence instead of Silveste from the start of games. You seem to have some misguided impression of Italy being a team that is really great, if that was the case they would have won a game by now and wouldn't be dependent on results in the other game to try and qualify for the 1/4 finals in second place. They were just as mediocre in Euro 2004 qualifying and in world cup 2002. Losing to Wales, Croatia and South Korea, struggling to draws against any other half decent team. Poor.
Italy's defense is not overrated, neither is Buffon. Italy has given up 1 goal in their 2 games and I doubt they will be giving up any against Bulgaria. Yes, the one goal was a rather bad one, but they have made more great defensive plays in these 2 games than France or England has made in all 3 of their games. Otherwise Italy would have 0 points, because their forwards and some of the midfield hasn't helped at all in the back. And in qualifying, Italy's defense and goalkeeping was stiffling. Italy doesn't deserve to be in any better position than they are. But as far as talent, they are second only to France which is why they were ranked 2nd by the oddsmakers to win it all. If the forwards ever start finishing, they are extremely dangerous. I still believe defense wins championships. France has the ability to play better defense despite injury problems, like they did in WC 98 and in the last Euro. Italy and France were in the last final because of defense. "In open play England are a stronger defence than Italy" How do you know when Trap never allows them to play that way? Their defenders play on league clubs with a variety of styles, there is no reason to think they can't play defense well in many styles. Doesn't much matter though because Buffon is miles better than James in any system, and also gives up less goals than Barthez.
Since you started the thread, perhaps you could rename it "When will you all realize that Italy is the best team in the world?" That will at least let some of us know what we're getting when we start to read it. Thanks.
LOL, yep that's why I am openly criticizing our coach and our team for bad performances. I have done this in various forums, while other Italian fans insist everything is fine. Get a clue. But the bottom line is England can't play much better than they have, but Italy has not come close to showing their potential or playing like they did in qualifying for Euro 2004. I am a realist when it comes to the talent levels each country has. But I'd rather see any team win Euro 2004 with a good balance of offense and defense rather than these shootouts that have happened the past few days.
The facts still are that Italy has given up just one goal in the competition..who has played better defense? England played well today, and could beat Italy, but its hard to not talk about Italy when you talk about the best defensive teams out there.
Don't worry, I know who you are. I even know about your creative spelling. Most people would disagree with you that this has been an especially offensive tournament. And today's results in Group B are much more of an anomaly, with the weaker teams still having a chance to advance and actually chasing the game. More goals sure, but not exactly shootouts. Perhaps you're angry that people enjoyed watching Netherlands vs. Czech Republic and actual goals were scored. As for Germany being strong defensively, or UEFA disallowing physical contact ... I really don't know what you're talking about. The obvious counter to both points is named Christian Woerns - a complete hack who is bearhugging anyone who gets an inch of space in his box. And yet he hasn't gotten a PK against him, or even a yellow card. As for slide tackling Rooney ... many have tried, few succeed. Many people don't like 1:0 games, and especially don't like teams that try to play for 1:0. Sorry if that hasn't earned Italy any new fans. And as best I can tell from your arguments, you think other teams should be playing for the 1:0 too. I guess UEFA is actually to blame here with their tiebreakers, hurting nice, conservative teams like Spain instead of ugly, nasty teams like Greece who went for it a bit more. No worries though, Italy is probably going through and I'm sure they'll perfect catenaccio in the quarters. Then we can all bow before the greater glory that is Italy. Actually I take back my earlier post. You should rename the thread "When will you all realize that 1:0 is the best scoreline and that Italy is the best team in the world?" That will at least let some of us know what we're getting when we start to read it. Thanks.
When Italy is playing their best, they should score more than a goal against weaker teams. They haven't thus far. True, with a more aggressive style like that of Portugal or Spain, they would score more. But there is more to football than scoring. The first half of their game against Sweden is the type of football I like. On average, I think 2-1 games are the best, which is probably why I like the Serie A. Any more goals than that, and the defense is usually lacking. The tourney didn't start out with many goals, but it seems the teams that might advance are the ones that are not playing the best defensively...that is not typical.
Yep, the teams that go the furthest are usually the ones that are the most efficient with their scoring. There is no need to win by 4 goals unless you need to make up for a goal differential.
Nice post FT... tho I'm not sure the English defense is so strong. I think their attacks benefits the defense very much. They were weak today in the air and I'm not sure Terry is fully fit yet. Fully agree about James. Would gladly have Buffon against any team. I think Italy's attack was moving well against Sweden. But for the lucky late Swedish goal, many would have said their game was much improved over their Denmark performance. I liked DelPiero's style and distribution much better than that of Totti. I want to see more of the Italians in this tournament so I wish them luck for tomorrow.
I think you're being a bit harsh there. FireTrappatoni has repeatedly claimed how poorly Italy has played in the tournament thus far and is no way using this post to claim they are the best in the world. Let me go back to the original starting post, the real matter at hand where Italy is just but one example said in his statement. I agree on many parts... the goals in the tournament have not impressed me with a few exceptions of course. I have not seen many teams scoring well and performing well due to a balance of both defense and offense. I mean so far the two group winners are Portugal, France and Czech Republic... Beginning with Group A, you hated to see Spain leave as they seemed more balanced than the two qualifying teams, Greece and a lacklustre Portugal. Portugal playing with a huge advantage of being at home did not look impressive to me as their defensive seemed easily penetratable and their finishing was off. France, although always respected by me as a team of immense talent, just has not impressed me one bit this tournament. In their first two games, they escaped with a victory against England and tie to Croatia on four goals: one a set piece, one a pk, one an own goal and own a defensive mistake. I mean for France to only score on these situations and not score because of beauitful goals or penetrating through balls and building pass plays is uninspiring. They were able to beat Switzerland fairly easy 2-1 and are the head of the group. Not impressive at all IMO as many French fans could rightly attest that France has performed so much better recently (exception to WC2002 of course). The Czechs were very impressive in their game against Holland as their forwards and midfield gelled beautifully together to create some great attacking football that was pleasing to the eye. Their defense was vulnerable in the game however as Holland could have won or tied. They were able to pull a win over an deserved performance by Latvia by pushing 4 forwards up in the end of the match. Impressive yes, but defensively and offensively balanced... not totally. Group C does not also show a team who possesses a strong sense of balance as all three contenders are not even guaranteed to go through. Italy I believe is closest (*when their midfield play) because their attacking play was impressive for most of the match against Sweden. With their play against Denmark, they looked dull and uneventful, typical Azzurri of recent years. Sweden and Denmark look to be improving and threatening teams as they tied Italy, a favorite of the tournament and had deserved victories over Bulgaria although a weak team. The final match tomorrow will a true testament of their strength as both teams have strong points and can expose each other's weaknesses.
Slight nitpick- the final result was 3-1. I agree though, none of the teams have been playing to their full potential. With the exception of greece. Hey, superfluous scoring with good defense is the way to go.
Agreed. Though the defensive problems seem to be more about making a few errors (that get punished) then being generally weak. Perhaps you don't agree with the distinction. I could easily say that the offenses have been weak, using the same criteria, and using Azzuri's points about France as a great example. Perhaps we can just say it hasn't been a particularly great tournament so far (though I'm enjoying it immensely). Or maybe we could just say that the teams are more evenly matched than ever and you don't see many (any?) teams dominating on defense and offense. Oh I'm definitely being a bit harsh. But he's also claiming that Italy can be the team to show the world how the game should be played. And they might be just one good quarterfinal game away from doing that. But if his underlying premise is that we should like Italy when they do that, many, many people will disagree. As a neutral I have a strong desire to see exciting, balanced, competitive games. I don't want a team to dominate both sides of the ball. As partisans your perspective may be different, especially as fans of Italy, who make a habit of killing off games. There is a reason the Netherlands (and this year the Czechs) make fans out of neutrals - they play exciting, attacking games, but leave an impression that the opposing team can compete. Italy (on their best days) won't do that and won't get much neutral support. Begrudging acceptance that Italy was the better side, but not support. Azzuri, as for the rest of your post I mostly agree. I will say that it looks like every time you say "balanced" it could be read as "conservative". For example: Spain - "balanced" Czechs - "not balanced" Though when you talk about balance in Group C, it's more about overall quality, or in the case of Italy vs. Sweden, near domination by Italy. So did Italy allow an equalizer against Sweden because they became "unbalanced" or just because they played more defensively and Zlatan scored an outrageously lucky (but beautiful!) goal? Did the Czechs win against a good Dutch team in spite of their "imbalance" or because a more open game would show them to be the better side?
Well, you don't have to play Italy's style to offer a display of equally good offense and defense. There are many ways to do this.
*Firstly, I apologize it was 3-1 France over Switzerland, sorry bout that typo. Hmmm... I see your point Supersoft, but with regard to Czech I'm not claiming their attacking style of play completely outshines their defense as I stated, "Impressive yes, but defensively and offensively balanced... not totally." Not totally meaning not that their defense was horrendous but their attack was spectacular. Although I could see how it could have been mistaken as such. The Czech-Holland game was a superb match, very exciting. I think overall, it was a game where perhaps both teams could not rely on a "balance" of both defense and offense. It was more like a grudge match, wherein the better finishing team would win. Difficult match to analyze in the way we are trying to characterize games in this post, I think this is one of those games where as a manager you might have to adjust the team's balance and push forward so that your offense will overcome the other team's offense while the defense still have presence when needed. This would achieve the victory. I hope this is clear... As per Group C, don't get me wrong... I'm not claiming Italy is a perfectly balanced team as it is quite evident that their offensive threat underachieves as their attacking units have not finished. Considering the two first matches, if anything I would claim Sweden is more stable as they have unleashed a lot of goals as well as allowed but one. But their style of play was distrupted against by Italy for the majority of the match and this is the only reason why I am skeptical of their "balance" as they scored heavily against Bulgaria a weaker defensive team and allowed the goal to Italy, a traditionally defensive team. It will be interesting to see how they match up against more worriesome countries, most likely either Netherlands or Germany (should they qualify). In the Sweden-Italy match, you said Zlatan equalised but I believe it was Ibrahimovic who scored, but you i could be wrong. Anyway...I believe Sweden were able to snag an goal because of several reasons: one, Italy was tiring and evidently their fitness is not as superb as Trap quite claimed upon their arrival at the tournament; two, it was a clear lapse on the defense; and three, Italy was playing beautiful soccer up until the 75' minute or so. When Trap called for a drastic change in play it caused the team to rethink their playing style which effected them psychologically and Sweden were able to capitalize. The latter is attributed to perhaps a poor coaching decision. Any who, I look forward to both games tomorrow... I think both should be very entertaining.
There is an old adage that goes "defence wins leagues, attack wins cups" and there is some truth in it. In a league situation you can afford to get it wrong in approximately one in four games - 10 games in a 40 game season will normally win you the league. But in a cup competition getting it wrong once has you out. The truth is that a one goal lead, which occurs often with defensive tactics, is NOT a sufficient lead. All it takes is one piece of skill by the opposition, one error, one bad refereeing decision, one piece of luck for that lead to disappear. The Italy/Sweden game and the England/France game were perfect examples of the first two respectively. And once the goal is pulled back, the momentum is with the opposition and it's difficult to get back into the game. In the league setup you may get away with the draw but in a cup competition that loss of momentum is crucial because you play on to a result with perhaps extra time when fatigue increases the possibility of error or on to a penalty shootout where defence is of little use. Uefa 2004 is not an out-and-out cup competition, at least not in the first phase, but the adage still has relevance and perhaps explains why Italy does not always do as well as the quality of their team would dictate.
Zlatan = Ibrahimovic It's his first name, and he's often just referred to as Zlatan as if he were Brazilian. Plus typing Zlatan is shorter than typing Ibrahimovic, though in this case it seems not to have saved me any keystrokes. As far as "balance" goes ... maybe I'd rather just hear that a team was good or was better than the other team. You should be allowed to say that "Italy was the better team and Sweden was quite lucky to escape with the draw." I say it, others say it, partisans and neutrals alike. There isn't some secret variable called "balance" that will determine the outcome of games, if only we could precisely measure it for all teams. This isn't science. Getting back to the equalizer - I don't disagree with the three things you cite. Just imagine an alternate universe, not much unlike our own, in which Ibrahimovic hadn't scored that goal and Italy had won 1:0. What then of everybody's judgements about fitness, ability, tactics, psychology, conspiracies, etc.? Are things really that different in the two cases, or is too much being made out of a chance outcome? As a neutral maybe it's easier for me to view objectively but again, this isn't science. Relax, you have a good team. I'd put your chances of advancing at nearly 90%.
Ther is a big difference in having a solid defence and playing defencive... Though Denmark have had a good solid defence so far, they have also had most ball possession and pushed forward in both their two games as you can clearly see by looking at the stats : http://www.euro2004.com/tournament/teams/team=35/statistics.html .
I don't agree with that entirely. Teams like Germany who have played stifling defense have done very well in cups, and Italy has done so in the past as well. If you look at the winners in many of the recent competitions, they won with defense more than goalscoring- France in 98 and Euro 2000, Italy making the finals in 2000, and Germany making the finals in WC 2002. You usually see more goalscoring in league play (especially in the Premireship and Spanish leagues) than you do in major tourneys with the teams that make it the farthest.
now you're talking. the reason you have yet to see italy get into gear is that they have yet to come up against a really top class team. the italians have always been the classic counter-attacking team. put henry running at nesta at then you'll see what kind of stones your team's got. i've always been a huge fan of italian defensive skills, epitomized by former captain and living legend maldini but would still rather see the more aggressive teams progress. anyway, fifa will never sell a 1-0 trench war to american audiences. remember paul mcgrath????
Yes supersoft, I agree with you totally...it's not science. I was just trying to analyze why it seemed Italy lost but yes, had they held onto the victory their would be less criticism of Italy's ways. But hopefully they will be able to execute this style of play and not allow fluke goals to be scored because evidently further on in the tournament they will be facing tougher teams. I hope so too... FORZA ITALIA
This has been true with Italy on certain circumstances yes. Oftentimes, it seems they do not show their true power until the face tougher opponents. Usually, in the group stages of tournaments you obviously face weaker teams. Italy has had a tradition of performing with mediocrity in the group stages and improving as the tournament progresses on. I just hate it because it always leaves us fans on our seats and nervous as hell because they always find themselves in situations such as today where qualification is not definitive. I'd rather seem them get 9 pt's and end it but hey, that's how they are i guess. Maldini was/is one of my favorite players... i always greatly admired his skills and level of play. Although, Zambrotta, his replacement has impressed me thusfar this tournament as his close man-marking and threatening runs down the left flank resemble his predecessor.
>Teams like Germany who have played stifling defense have done very well in cups They're far from having a defensive approach to the game. No one's saying that defence isn't important - you certainly don't win matches by conceding many goals - but the emphasis you place on defence - the willingness to sacrifice attacking play - is very much an Italian approach. >and Italy has done so in the past as well. Italy doesn't win the tournaments the quality of its players deserve. The performance in this tournament is typical. I believe your squad is one of the best three here. They were streets ahead of Sweden and were in little danger of not winning that match when they suddenly switched to protecting the one goal lead. And, just as I described above, one event, in this case a very fortuitous goal, cancelled out the win. They've been eliminated precisely because they decided to defend the one goal lead you seem to think is sufficient. > If you look at the winners in many of the recent competitions, they won with defense more than goalscoring Brazil haven't done badly over the years. >France in 98 and Euro 2000 They weren't a defensively oriented team. They had a quality defence but they certainly never set out to defend slender leads at all costs. >Italy making the finals in 2000 Which they lost! >and Germany making the finals in WC 2002. Which they lost! The point is not that you can't win a couple of matches or more but that, in cup competitions, you have to win EVERY round. One failure and you're out. Defending a one goal lead often leads to that in a sequence of matches. The second point is that in the half-league/half-cup phases of the cup competition then goal difference and goals scored often becomes the tie breaker. Your idea that a one goal win is sufficient again falls apart in this. The bigger the win, the bigger the difference and the more likely you are to win the tie breaker. This is even true in the home/away phase of the European Cup competitions where you accumulate the two results. If you look at the winners of domestic cup competitions you'll see that the league's best teams only relatively rarely win them. The "double" is a not a common event. That's because random events have a much greater influence in cup competitions because a single one can eliminate even the best teams. In particular, a single random event can destroy a one goal lead. Much better, therefore to have two or more and take the luck out of the game. So I'm not saying that your idea about the importance of defence is wrong, balance is crucial, but your approach isn't balanced. England have major weaknesses in defence which I think may well prevent them from winning this competition. But the freedom with which their attack is scoring puts them in with a chance their squad possibly doesn't deserve.