Italy versus Spain Rematch

The Italian team just couldn't play on the same field as the Spanish team yesterday.  Spain just won its third consecutive major tournament, something that has never been done before.  That is an amazing accomplishment when you consider all the great German and Brazilian teams to have played the game never accomplished that same feat.  Italy just came up against a team that is probably the best in the history of the sport, despite the fact that there is no real "superstar" on the team per se.

The Spanish defense was very stingy; in fact the only goal they gave up was to Antonio Di Natale in the first meeting between the two squads.  All of the shots, a couple of them hard, by the Italian team were straight at Casillas, the Spanish keeper. He was never out of position. Italy could just not get any good chances to score.

On the bright side, Italy was able to maintain possession better than the first game.  And even though they were down a man for much of the second half, it didn't appear that way at first, as they played with a lot of heart.  But it's virtually impossible to win with a man down, against even lesser opponents.  But then after a while, the fatigue set in and they gave up two additional garbage goals that made it a 4-0 whooping.

On the bright side, Coach Prandelli wanted to make the Italian people fall in love with "Gli Azzurri" again, and he did that.  They may not have made it out of the first round, but they did, and they kept winning as underdogs to teams that were supposed to beat them.  So give credit where it is due.  Mario Balotelli looks like the real deal, and he is only 21.  Hopefully he can keep maturing as an individual, and perhaps become the greatest player in Italian football history.

It'll be interesting to see how the World Cup 2014 shakes out in Brazil.  A European team has never won on South American soil.  So that would definitely favor Brazil and Argentina. Uruguay may be a dark horse in that mix as well.

We still have to be proud of the boys in blue - they gave it their all and came up short against a better team.

We'll wish them luck in Brazil - Forza Italia!

The Italian team would pay no attention to the oddsmakers that gave them only about a 33% chance of winning today's game against Germany.

Mario Balotelli, the talented striker powered in two goals, one with a header, that helped Gli Azzurri reach the final EuroCup game against Spain this Sunday.

Perhaps the German team remembered too many of the recent heartaches against the Italian teams, and tried to overcoach the game.  They had some chances, but Italy was able to build a lead, and then used its swarming defense to shut down the high-powered German attack.

Once again Buffon made some great saves, even though he looked a little off in the beginning of the match.  But his teammates bailed him out on a few occasions.

There were even some other good chances that the Italians could have capitalized like Claudio Marchisio's chance in the 67th and 75th minute.  Even Antonio Di Natale, who substituted for Balotelli had a nice chance in the 82nd minute.

Coming up for Italy is a rematch with Spain, who outplayed Italy in the first match if you look at the time of possession.

We'll see if this time is different.  Balotelli had a couple of golden chances in the first meeting that he did not capitalize on....I'm sure he would love to have those back.  Maybe he will get his wish this Sunday.

Hats off to the Italian team that put in an impressive performance against a heavily favored British soccer team.

Prior to the game, England had more than a 60% chance of advancing according to the experts.  But that didn't stop the Italian team from dominating the flow of the game, and controlling the possession of the ball.

Andrea Pirlo proved once again why he is a world class player setting up many scoring chances for the Italian team.  They just couldn't capitalize on any chances, and as a result, required an additional 30 minutes of play.  And even after all that, they needed to settle the game with penalty kicks.

I think it is a shame when a game has to end this way.  Obviously, they can't continue to play. However, I wonder if they ever thought of doing a bunch of corner kicks to settle the game. That way, the whole team is involved instead of relying on the accuracy of your goalie's guess.

During the penalty kick phase, Italy fell quickly behind, but it was 2 misses by 2 UK players that doomed the English squad.

Buffon showed why he is the highest paid goalie in the world by guessing correctly and blocking a shot to his right.

It's amazing such storied soccer programs have only met 3 times before with the most recent game being for 3rd place at the 1990 World Cup in Italy.

It's ironic, both of these teams are known for losing in cruel fashion via the penalty kick.  Up until the World Cup victory in 2006, Italy was many times plagued by the penalty kick results not going their way.  The most famous result being Roberto Baggio's high kick against Brazil during the 1994 final game.

Looking ahead for the Italian team, they will have to play Germany, a team that has looked good all tournament.  Because of the scheduling, Germany will have more rest, and the Italian team will have to recover from playing an additional 30 minutes of ball.  Coach Prandelli will have to make the right moves and substitutions in order for the Italian team to advance to the final game against either a rematch versus Spain or a game versus Portugal.

Italy Advances in a tense game

Despite not being in control of their own destiny, a little luck of the Irish reigned down on the Italian team as they were able to fend off elimination and beat an Irish team playing solely for pride by the score of 2-0.

The victory is the first in the last 5 attempts by the Italian team.  Perhaps it is a turning point in their quest for their second EuroCup Championship, the last one being in 1968.

Italy started a little slow, seeming a little out of sorts.  Perhaps the new formation instituted by Coach Prandelli was a little too much to get used to.They started getting in gear around 15 minutes before the end of the first half, and finally Antonio Cassano in the 35th minute headed in a beautiful corner kick by Andrea Pirlo.  The Irish goalkeeper got a hand on it, but it bounced into the goal, and then bounced out.

The second half again did not start too well for the Italian team.  As it has been all tournament, they looked a little outplayed.  The Irish team was able to produce some counter attacks, even though Italy controlled the ball.

It was a tense game that came down to the end.  After a red-card to an Irish player, Mario Balotelli was able to put in the second goal in the 90th minute.  You can see how much potential this striker has, as he had to fend of a defender off-balance, and was able to do a semi-bicycle kick into the goal.  It was a gorgeous score.

However, the Italian team was not able to celebrate right away until the Spanish-Croatia game ended in a 1-0 victory for Spain.  Croatia was knocking on the door late in the game, and an equalizing goal would have forced the Italian team to exit the tournament with Croatia advancing.

That was not the case today as a little luck of the Irish smiled down on the Italian team.