Urs, Good luck tonight. Im a bit torn as its my two favourite teams, but watch out for the man with the packet of fags who looks 43 pinging balls around midfield!
here's a few old classic football adverts from the 90s, you may or may not have seen but thought you might like.
Paul Gascoigne - The Magician. Adidas predator boot.
Nike's famous collosseum advert featuring Cantona, Kluivert, Maldini, Ronaldo etc
Cant stand him but western parody advert for pepsi with Beckham. roberto carlos etc; complete with parody of cheyenne theme and all the usual Italian western cliches
There's another adidas one I cant find where they used to call Spain's Fernando Hierro the Locomotive - and they did a brilliant advert with a locomotive stuck at a crossing when suddenly the two old drivers see this ball of dust in the distance and its Hierro running through the desert - accompanied by chugging train noises - and the train has to get out of the way and wont start and the two old boys are panicking etc etc and they just manage to get it out of the way as Hierro charges through! very funny. It was only shown in Europe and never in the UK but cant find it on youtube. The gascoigne one was part of a series of 6 in mid-90s. The others included one on Desailly, Sammer and I think Del Piero.
What a great first half; Germany had some chances but the way Italy is playing on the long pass in the center is beautiful. Great goals by crazy Balotelli, Germany has to bring it now.
Nice match today, far better than the miserable affair between Spain and Portugal yesterday.
Surprised by Italy and their impressive defense! Not even Germany could deal with that, and now I'm starting to doubt if Spain can do so too. The final will have two teams that are very fond of posession. Might not be that entertaining, but as a neutral observer I hope for the best.
On a related topic, I see David Beckham has not been selected for the GB Olympic football squad.
Yes - good for Stuart Pearce, making his own selections instead of being dictated to by the suits.
Italy beating Germany wasn't the biggest sporting surprise of the day - you have to go to SW19 for that - but a great performance by Super Mario and that promising Pirlo kid. I hope they go on to beat Spain on Sunday (sorry El Graham). Spain's method was summed up in one of the papers as: Pass, pass, fall over, kick, pass, pass, score, win 1-0, repeat.
Spain's method was summed up in one of the papers as: Pass, pass, fall over, kick, pass, pass, score, win 1-0, repeat.
Thats funny TG.
A day late but Oooh my word, yet another safe Billcarson prediction bites the dust! ha ha.
They did okay in the first group game but as they have grown in stature and confidence, Italy to certainly offer a much tougher test for Spain second time around tomorrow night.
Urs- whats the view on Germany? Did they get cocky with growing expectation which made them rush their usual clinical finishing?
I had to laugh at the familiar sight of German players lying exhasuted and defeated on the pitch while some other team "lived the dream."
Go Italia!
It's been a sparsely attended semester at work, so some guys and I were watching this match online, I was the only one in the room who wanted Italy to win. The look of shock on their faces when Germany kept failing was hilarious.
Such is Football, as I'm learning. Love this game.
Urs- whats the view on Germany? Did they get cocky with growing expectation which made them rush their usual clinical finishing?
Frankly I avoided most of the post-match analysis and reporting. If there is one thing I cannot stand it's the usual "I told you so" self-chastisising among football fans demonizing this or that player after a defeat. In my eyes Germany were sloppy twice in half one and simply never recovered from that given that Italy (then) was in the comfortable position of being able to fully focus on defending ever after. In a way Italy reminded me of Germany's "glorious" victories against England and Argentina in the WC 2010. Amid all the praisal back then I always felt the fact that it was probably just ice cold counter football was completely missed. And that's what Italy played perfectly in this semi-final, just against Germany.
Having said that, I'm not claiming at all that Italy was back at catenaccio. Italy has played very attractive football in this tournament and, as I said before, I so want them to defeat Spain. I never liked Spain's tiki-taka, regardless how "excellent" and "unsurpassable" experts might praise it – just like I never found any joy in the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Zero goals football just isn't my cup of tea. Football genius my a**.