All going to schedule
Recently, as the World Cup got underway and Italy were playing Ghana in their first match, my brother pointed out that Italy get to the final every 12 years, last doing so when they were beaten in 94 by Brazil. Before that it was '82, where they beat Germany in the final, and '70, being swept away by Pele's Brazil.
Last night they won a great game against Germany to go through to the final on Sunday, twelve years after appearing in the USA final. It was a great match and Italy stood out as the better team and were quite un-Italian in the way they looked to attack for most of the game.
Their reward came in two minutes at the end of extra time. Italy looked as the prospect of facing Germany in a penalty shoot out was not an option, bearing in mind the fact that only one German player has ever missed a penalty in 5 shootouts.
To their great credit, Germany were not playing for penalties either and were piling forward for most of the half hour. At times there seemed to be two games of "attack vs defence" with a massive amount of space in the middle.
Grosso was the man to finally break the collective heart of Germany, both players and nation, with a wonderful left foot, curling finish when Germany first failed to clear a corner and then left him completely unmarked ten yards from goal.
He seemed to subconciously emulate Marco Tardelli's celebration in the 1982 final and ran away, eyes closed, head shaking and face that seemed to want to show 3 or 4 emotions at once, each of them battling for supremacy.
A minute later Del Piero hammered the nail in the coffin with another wonderful finish, after a quick break and cute pass from Gilardino and Italy were through to the final after another 12 year wait.
In Spain, as has been well documented, the Italy campaign was shrouded in the fall out of a corruption scandal and the team took a long while to find their feet.
It looked to me that they had definitely found their feet last night.
Last night they won a great game against Germany to go through to the final on Sunday, twelve years after appearing in the USA final. It was a great match and Italy stood out as the better team and were quite un-Italian in the way they looked to attack for most of the game.
Their reward came in two minutes at the end of extra time. Italy looked as the prospect of facing Germany in a penalty shoot out was not an option, bearing in mind the fact that only one German player has ever missed a penalty in 5 shootouts.
To their great credit, Germany were not playing for penalties either and were piling forward for most of the half hour. At times there seemed to be two games of "attack vs defence" with a massive amount of space in the middle.
Grosso was the man to finally break the collective heart of Germany, both players and nation, with a wonderful left foot, curling finish when Germany first failed to clear a corner and then left him completely unmarked ten yards from goal.He seemed to subconciously emulate Marco Tardelli's celebration in the 1982 final and ran away, eyes closed, head shaking and face that seemed to want to show 3 or 4 emotions at once, each of them battling for supremacy.
A minute later Del Piero hammered the nail in the coffin with another wonderful finish, after a quick break and cute pass from Gilardino and Italy were through to the final after another 12 year wait.
In Spain, as has been well documented, the Italy campaign was shrouded in the fall out of a corruption scandal and the team took a long while to find their feet.
It looked to me that they had definitely found their feet last night.
posted by Ween at 10:53 AM
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