Nobody
Gangster
Didn't Italy pull some sort of thing to knock Australia out of the last world cup?
Just post the videos created in Germany against Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Spain and I'll abandon my completely ungrounded idea that it's representative of an undercurrent vein of Germany, the Brazil of Europe, against us katzelmachers.
I have nothing against Italians in general and I love the country - but I can't love a soccer team that has theatrics as its primary strategy to resort to when playing the 78th ranked national team in the world. I wanted to see the world champions play champagne soccer with sublime skills and I was disappointed - not by the result, which was awesome, but the quality of the play and silly diving.
I hope we get better from Paraguay in the next game.
sure, not going to embed them, though and take no responsibility about the quality of the music.
England: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X18oZY6QQOI&feature=related
Netherlands: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j82VFs0NZY4&feature=related
pretty sure there is one against France somewhere. Spain, Brazil and Argentina would surprise me.
all better now?
Great analysis.(..) The harsh truth is that even at our best we're simply not a flashy team. If there was a football yearbook like one sees in American movies, Italy would be the "least likely to create a highlight reel".
The thing was mitigated in the past thanks to a specific type of player, called "fantasista", who stood behind the forwards to add a dash of artistry to our game. Sadly the heir to Baggio, Totti, hasn't been lucky wearing blue, and even in 2006 he played after a heavy injury which limited his influence quite a bit - he still managed to rack up the highest number of direct passes in the tournament, though.
Then Pirlo was injured, and with him went the one man with vision our senile manager brought along. I could foresee us suffering tremendously for being frankly too "workmanslike", and was confirmed right.
In-depth, merciless rundown on our team:
The defencehas been suffering incredible blackouts, the more damning because, I trust even on this board it will be conceded, we're supposed to be the poster boys of defensive football. And thins against teams that were both times defending their result - I suspect that, were we to face the Netherlands, all the limits of our back line would result in a repetition of the Confed cup.
The midfield, it has some lights. Namely, the new bogeyman De Rossi, a player of quility and quantity that can both attack and defend. Why he did spend so much of the NZ game close to the defense, defies my understanding. But then? Marchisio looked like an under-17 suddenly entrusted with the fantasista role; he looked soout of his depth, teh team stopped giving him the ball. Montolivo has positively surprised with his personality, and at least attembted some shots from outside - which, given our inability to have our strikers touch a ball looked like our best chance.
The strikers are... MIA. Gilardino might as well have sat on the grass, he was absolutely invisible. Iaquinta, well, he tried, as the workhorse he is, but finishing was never his forte and he comes out of a troubled year phisically. And he's expected to come from the side, which he said openly is not his role, while Quagliarella, who plays the role every week, rots on the bench.
We're already preparing a wicker man for Lippi, who's looking less defensible by the game. He tried in the latest friendlies the 4-3-3, a surefire method to make sure that everyone in the team has no reference point. In Serie A the 4-3-3 has gone the way of the dodo years ago. Then with Paraguay he attempts a 4-5-1 that almost reaches the same result. He returns to a sensible 4-4-2 for NZ, and in the first half we can't score but at least look like we're putting some pressure. Then in the second half, out goes Pepe who had been very active (he didn't follow his instructions, Lippi said ) and it's back to 4-5-1. That Di Natale entered for Gilardino, and touched as many balls, reveals how effective this change was. Throughout the match our by far primary tactic appeared to be the high cross (this against a team fielding five men taller than 1,90) which in Italy would be defined "alla 'viva il parroco'" ("parish-yard style").
The man has taken to considering himself above criticism. For two years now he refused to acknowledge that Italians follow their NT with an obsessive scrutiny that is sorely lacking in our political arena, and refused to account for his... peculiar calls. The legitimate heir to Totti is a temperamental firecracker named Cassano, who rowed famously with Capello at Real, and can have dry spells - still, he hasn't caused a fuss in two years, and would have been the quality player we tragically miss out forward. That he's not in SA is openly chalked down to personal animosity from Lippi, because his son, a footballers' manager, was turned down by him.
Then there's SuperMario Balotelli, 19 and exploding at Inter. He's also endowed with a short fuse, and clashed with Mou the whole season; but Mou held his reins as tightly as he could, but never backed down brom using him like a secret weapon. It would have been a great idea to bring a perspective black star to te African cup, but noo, he's too young for Lippi, who cultivates locker room harmony like an old man tends to his cabbages. That's why he thought well to rely on the Juventus group: their season was embarrassing, but he just loves black-and-white stripes... (..)
Sofista, unconvinced by that video's argument. He appears to be going down before the elbow gets in a plausible position.
Great analysis.
I've seen what you sketch (lack of creativity; unusual weak defense; no worldclass striker etc.) without knowing the backgrounds.
Well, of course it's your right. I'll say it only this time, because it's in the past, but:
- sliding tackles are bankrupt defending; in one of the early games in this cup another such tackle occurred, and the result was, lo and behold, a penalty.
- changing direction running at full speed is not simple.
- we played that game in ten for an hour because of a joke of a red: whose fault it is that the other team did nothing with their advantage? And what kind of a screw job is that?)
A well-timed sliding tackle is a thing of beauty.- sliding tackles are bankrupt defending
accidental elbowing some one or being offside, or tripping someone by mistake are all bad things and the teams should get a penalty.
But taking a dive is like using steroids, or match fixing. The player should be banned for a year and the team should lose all of its points in the competition.
Sofista - well done on a balanced analysis that did not resort to gross generalisations of other teams (which seems to be the go-to strategy of some of us posting in these threads unfortunately).
Despite your misgivings of your team, you must still have expected to comfortably beat us, surely? You are still ranked number 5 in the world after all, so your team must have done some things right in the last year or two.
Yes, you're right that we have no professional league in NZ. So, really, the NZ team should no better than a really bad club team in Europe.
The entire New Zealand team gets paid less than the italian goal keeper.