The Official Azzurri thread 2

[RomaShield27]

Grande Italia! Italia! Italia! Italia! What a win. Senfuckinsational. I've just finished watching it on delay, what a performance. It should have been even more, as it really should have been 3-0 toward the end with so many great chances which weren't taken, but luckily it didn't matter.

Super performances all over the pitch. Pirlo, what can you say, peerless as ever. DDR was equally as immense, but as often the grafter doesn't get the credit as the man on the ball, but he won't mind, he was a complete fucking warrior throughout the game. I had to laugh when at the end, just after he made a lung busting run forward to get on the end of a Pirlo through ball, he had to bend over to catch his breath, he was bolloxed, suffering in pain, yet he fought on to the end. That's DDR.

Balzaretti was great throughout, I have to say. Playing out of position, he looked very comfortable, making a couple of crucial interceptions, and did well on the ball. I just loved his celebration for his great block at the end - normally such a practice is a bit vein, but it was just totally genuine and pure emotion and great to see. The handball was very harsh as he was struggling with Klose. I was also very impressed with Montolivio. He gets a lot of criticism – a lot from me too – but I thought he tried his heart out and had some lovely touches. He set up Balo's second and was very close to completing some wonderful through balls in the first-half.

Cassano was great although he did tire at the end. Barzagli and Bonnuci were rock solid, Buffon made some great saves. Just brilliant all round.

[RomaShield27]

DDRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!



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Edit to add:

[Italiamia]

I know I am getting older but I fail to see the resemblance. He must look like his father.

[DCGweez]

Her love for a child not her own is truly repugnant. She obviously knew at 4 what he'd become. So selfish.

[p_maldini_3]

[p_maldini_3]

i will never forget this image. pure fuking power.

[Messinterista]

[RomaShield27]

[maro]

You should have been about during the game, threadz. It was kicking off.

[RomaShield27]

Kicking off proper like?

[maro]

Yeah, DCG glassed the closet Nazi-sympathiser from Georgia. 'twas wkd. And then Flagg said Italy had done well but they wouldn't be good enough to cut it in the Asian Nations Tlophy, or whatever it's called.

[maro]

mk missed the game, though, unfortunately - he said he wanted to watch a replay of the Spain-Portugal game instead to find more things to whinge about. One can hardly question the seriousness of his intellectual commitment to that cause.

[DCGweez]

I think Maro has jumped aboard the bus. As much as he would have us believe he's above it all, I sense some emotional investment.

Meanwhile I ventured out in public for the first time since the US game in 06'. I had no idea there were so many Italian speakers in my area.

Slick hair, Azzurri jersey and the yelling of "Mamma Mia" and "Vah fan Coolo" we're the two most common phrases.

If one had been surrounded by women and talking up his fledgling pizza empire I'd have risked asking if it was Zoff.

[maro]

[red]

Very impressive performance from Italy.

Shame they couldn't get the third goal that they deserved.

As far as I can recall, Germany only created one clear chance in the whole game (when Lahm shot over). There aren't many teams who have been able to restrict Germany like that over the last four years.

Team created chances as they have throughout the tournament, but they were clinical for the first time.

Loew made a real mess of things with his lineup. Putting Kroos into the team instead of a winger, and moving Oezil wide, was, I assume, an attempt to get in about Pirlo and disrupt Italy's play in midfield.

However, the change did far more to disrupt Germany's play. The couldn't stretch the pitch the way they normally do and Oezil couldn't be as influential starting from a wider position.

I really don't understand why Loew should have made such a change. Surely with a team as strong as Germany have - and with them being fresher than Italy - he should have backed him team to dominate the game by playing the way they normally do.

[Lombardiamia]

This is for all Nazi supporters in the world.



Tomorrow I'm off to Roma to see the match at the Piazza del Popolo. I still to this day regret not doing this back in 2006. This time, I'll be there..with my people.

Enjoy lads...and let's kick some paella arses!!

[RomaShield27]

Euro 2012: Antonio Cassano has final say after nightmare ordeal
Striker who describes himself as an Italian 'leader of technique' faces Spain months after fearing death from serious illness

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog ... sano-final

"I started having trouble speaking. I knew what I wanted to say, but the words did not come out. That is when I started to think about seeing my son one more time."

At first, Antonio Cassano did not think there was anything wrong with him. Earlier that night, in October last year, he had come off the bench to play a part in Milan's 3-2 win at Roma. The flight back to Malpensa had gone well and he was looking forward to seeing his family again. Then, on the bus from the airport, he started to feel ill. His head started to spin and he could not see well with his left eye.

Still, he did not want to listen to the team doctor, who kept urging him to go to hospital. "We argued for half an hour," Cassano recalled later, "before I agreed to visit the hospital. And that is when I started to have trouble speaking and thought about seeing my son again."

Cassano, it turned out, had suffered an ischemic stroke, which occurs when an artery to the brain is blocked. He was operated on four days later and left Milan's Policlinico hospital the following Sunday. No one knew when – or even if – he would return to a football pitch.

Cassano spent the next few months recovering – and pondering the fragility of life. Slowly, slowly, he regained the appetite for football. After all, the "whole world" had been in touch to wish him well and stated the desire to see him in a Milan shirt again. "If I am honest I was afraid of dying, in particular during those days before the operation," he said. "For 36 hours I did not understand anything. I struggled to speak and did not remember what had happened to me. But the important thing is that I got through it and that everyone, from Real Madrid to Barcelona, from Mourinho to Del Neri and even Iniesta phoned me. I know I have the power and the will to return to the pitch and I feel ready. If it is possible then I would like to play against Fiorentina on Saturday."

The interview was recorded on 5 April. Against Fiorentina, two days later, he came off the bench with six minutes remaining and nearly won a penalty. A week later, however, the Serie B player Piermario Morosini collapsed and died before he reached the hospital. For Cassano, it was his worst nightmare unfolding in front of his eyes. It almost proved too much. "I was feeling fine but after seeing perfectly fit sportsmen such as [Vigor] Bovolenta [a former Italian international volleyball player who died a few hours after a match in March 2012] and Morosini die suddenly I just wanted to give up. I seemed incapable of summoning the will to continue. My wife was really upset and concerned. I just sat there on my sofa, staring into the wall. I wanted to finish with football. I said: 'I give it all up, I am playing with my life here.'"

In the end, he was convinced to continue playing, with the Italy coach, Cesare Prandelli, having a profound impact on the decision. "First and foremost I was just pleased to be alive but Cesare Prandelli gave me a real push and desire to return to the game. He was fundamental in my recovery and kept telling everyone, and me in particular, that he would wait until the very last minute to make sure I made the squad for Euro 2012."

And whatever happens against Spain on Sunday, Cassano has already repaid Prandelli. Against the Republic of Ireland, which Italy had to win to progress from the group stage, he scored the first goal. Against Germany in the semi-final on Thursday night, he ran Joachim Löw's side ragged. The assist for Mario Balotelli's first goal was classic Cassano: creating space down the left he got to the ball before Mats Hummels, whom he then turned inside out with three touches of his right foot, before setting Balotelli up with a sumptuous left-footed cross. Balotelli's header was brutal, Cassano's assist sublime.

In the BBC studio, Gianluca Vialli said that Italy's No10 was a mix of Gianfranco Zola and Paolo Di Canio. He has, the implication was, the technique of Zola and the temperament of Di Canio. Vialli knows what he is talking about. The fact that Cassano will line up for Italy in a European Championship final at the age of 29 is a small miracle, even without taking his health scare into account.

His reputation precedes him. Even before he said he hoped "there were no gays in the Italian squad" at Euro 2012, for which he was rightly castigated, there had been enough incidents to suggest that Cassano was a man who was not serious enough to reach the top.

Cassano was born on 12 July 1982, the day after Italy had beaten West Germany to win the World Cup. His mother was forced to raise him alone as his father, Gennaro, was married to another woman, with whom he already had three children. Cassano never forgave the man who gave him his surname and in 2008, two years before dying, Gennaro Cassano told La Repubblica: "For him, I am the devil. When we meet in the street, he pretends that he does not know me, he does not even want to hear my name."

Cassano was not interested. He had his football. He failed trials at Internazionale (twice) and Parma (once) before being picked up by Bari. There he had two successful seasons before joining Fabio Capello's Roma as a 19-year-old in 2001, where he thrived, at times, and then self-destructed. Having already clashed with the Italy Under-21 coach Claudio Gentile, he severely tested Capello's patience, walking out of training on several occasions, leading the manager to coin the phrase Cassanata (Cassano-ism) to try to explain the behaviour of the Barese.

It is indicative that Capello still wanted to take Cassano with him to Real Madrid in 2006. In Spain, however, Cassano's career lost all momentum, which the player famously admitted in his autobiography. "I must have had sex with 600 or 700 women in hotels. And in Madrid it was easy because I lived in a hotel. The bell boy's job was to bring me three pastries after sex. He would hand me the pastries, I would hand him the girl, and he'd return her into the night. Sex plus pastries – could it be any better?"

He left after one season, 19 league appearances, two goals and, presumably, an insurmountable amount of pastries. Overweight and with his reputation on the line, he joined Sampdoria, first on loan and then, in 2008, permanently. It was the perfect move for him.

He regained his fitness and his confidence and the marriage to Carolina Marcialis in 2010 and the birth of their son, Christopher, a year later, calmed him down. And for four years he delighted the fans at Luigi Ferraris, taking the club into the 2010-11 Champions League qualifiers, where he scored a backheel against Werder Bremen. Once again, he had become too good for the top clubs to ignore and signed for Milan in January 2011.

Few thought then that the move would lead to a revived international career but, as Cassano pointed out recently, he has made "3,000 sacrifices" to reach the Euros. His partnership with Balotelli is arguably the most explosive and utterly unpredictable in the history of the European Championship, but it is equally mesmerising.

Cassano may have his faults but he can be endearingly honest and self-deprecating. Asked during Euro 2012 whether he could become a role model for Balotelli, he answered: "A leader is someone who runs more than the rest, and I don't do that. A leader is someone who is always humble, and I am not. A leader is someone who is always available from the morning to the evening, and I am not. Let's say, as Prandelli does, that I am a leader of technique."

Prandelli would not have it any other way and, after the win against Germany, hailed the striker's performance. "That was his best performance of the tournament so far, in terms of intensity, what he showed on the pitch, how he ran and how he fought," he said. "I knew he might be one of our key players at the tournament. He may only have 50 minutes in his legs but these are 50 fantastic minutes."

It is quite a turnaround for a player who feared he was going to die only eight months ago. But, as Cassano said at the time: "I want people to have good memories of Cassano; I don't want pity." Pity seems a long way away at the moment. Good memories, and a European Championship winner's medal, much closer.

[DCGweez]

[DCGweez]

And awesome link Ed. Thanks.

[p_maldini_3]

can you think of a better midfield than pirlo, marchisio and de rossi?

in most quality midfield trio's, you'll have a creator[/ball player], a destroyer and a hustler. in italy's case, they have the world's best creator, pirlo, one of the fittest hustlers in marchisio, and then DDR who is a jack of all trades while being a master at all as well.

germany's midfield was pretty good too, oezil, khedira and pigfarmer, but their creator had no space and khedira was in de rossi's pocket the entire game. leaving schweini all by himself. but then we have that extra midfielder in mount olive whose defensive contribution was underrated.

spain have xabi, xavi and busquets. and xavi has 'struggled' the entire tournament playing as a trequartista while xabi and busquets sit back for the most part. add montolivo to the mix and italy can really battle it out with spain in dominating the middle.

get cassano in 1v1's against pique and he can rip him apart like he did with hummels, and let balotelli beat it out with sergio ramos.

if del bosque wants to trouble italy, he better start one of his wingers and use italy's narrow formation to his advantage, otherwise italy can come out on top like they did against ze germanz.