second halves in last 2 games are the main reason those who hate football - hate football. even the players don't want to participate anymore.
Day 2 | Hungary vs Switzerland | Spain vs Croatia | Italy vs Albania
- Thread starter SilentWitness
- Start date
Good save
I thought that was going in
Were the Italian players missing golden goal sitters in the Korea game in on this by the way?
I hate that they don’t show the pitch runners. I get why, but I want to see what’s going down when the crowd is cheering 
Albania deserves credit for not completely unraveling. They’re actually trying out there.
One thing I’ve never understood about VAR; why can’t it step in for obvious mistakes? Ref just gave Italy a goal kick but the replay clearly shows it came off the keeper. Doesn’t even need a second viewing, it’s an obvious corner. Is there a reason VAR can’t tell the ref the correct decision in such cases?
Italy have been poisonous to watch.
No it’s stupid and would take a second for someone to just say “it’s a corner”.
Albania have done well but I think Italy are playing within themselves a little.
Italy have done a job out there tonight. Nothing more, nothing less
Game slowed down considerably in the second half. They knew they'd done enough and conserved energy and performance. Professional display.
Bit of a dull 2nd half
I mean we scored one eventually, but Moreno chalked it off of course. That was goal #157 incorrectly disallowed against us in that world cup
That was a boring second half. 3 games a day and this so nearly put me to sleep
That's an understatement, but that's Italy we're talking about.
They get the job done, appearances be damned.
Nah, we were just bad in the second half. Gassed, too. It happens. Hopefully not for another 6 games...
Spain and Italy managing to get wins while playing within themselves for large parts of their games.
2nd half was shocking I almost felt asleep and wasn't even a neutral.
We got the job done without wasting much energy anyway but in the next one vs Spain we need to improve our performance
We got the job done without wasting much energy anyway but in the next one vs Spain we need to improve our performance
Albania shoed a Scotland-tier performance yet Italy allowed them to stay in the game until the final minute and indeed Albania had a pretty good chance towards the end.
In the end no one will care how you've won your games at a tournament, but the second half must be concerning for the Italians.
Dullness is more Albania's fault. No reason to defend deep with 9 still in 87th minute.
Frattesi is late with everything he does.
Frattesi is late with everything he does.
Yeah I don’t disagree with that, though would like to note that his awful injury was after he returned from Southampton, so his stock was probably the highest the summer of 2022.
Okay, in my mind I was thinking he got injured on loan. That said, if that’s the case - he had a promising start to his loan and then didn’t do much for several months after that. Admittedly, it was in a struggling team that went down. You’re right, that was the best summer to sell, but I do think even then, Chelsea were being greedy with their valuation.
Thought so. Shame, really. Correcting these obvious errors would surely make folk appreciate VAR a little more.
Yeah "stupid"....... "one second"...... ......except it's not always clear in one second and you can't decide to just arbitrarily check some corner situations and ignore others.
Buffon, Cannavaro, Pirlo, Del Piero, Totti, Gattuso, Nesta, Zambrotta, Toni (…)
Zero (0) goals conceded from open play.
Other than Barella and Dimarci no one from today’s Italy steps foot on grass in 06.
Southampton finished 15th that year. They went down the year after I believe. He scored 10 goals I think, which was pretty decent for a 19 year old loanee. But yeah, we broadly agree. Unfortunate injury, hasn’t shown anything remotely promising since then, which has completely tanked his value.
All the glory for my bet goes to Di Marco's inexplicable throw in decision.
In the end I was basically wrong in that Jorginho didn't have any issues dealing with counters/runners/dribblers down the middle, but sometimes you see the theory behind a bet come true and you still lose the bet, so I'll take this one.
Nesta got injured and Totti was unfit. Grosso was arguably our second best player. Materazzi was great. And I'd take Chiesa over Camoranesi, though it's close
I reiterate: this is a pretty good team on paper and not that much weaker than 2006. Like Aston Villa to City
He looked really promising for Southampton. You could see the same quality ball carrying from him a couple times today. Not sure exactly what the best system/team would be for him, but when he's healthy he's a strong dribbler for a #9.
Alright if ‘that’ means the distance between Villa and City I agree.
2006 team would kill the 2024 team
Albania should've gone for a couple more long range attacks, the sub striker looked quite a threat.
Di Marco and Barella are my favourite players ..... and I agree.
Just, we need to be fair and say this is not just a matter concerning Italy.
Most football teams have line-ups which are shadows of what they used to be.
Let's take France, which is a one of the favourites... they started, among others, with Thuram, Gallas, Vieira, Makelelè, Vieira, Pires, Zidane, Henry, Trezeguet.
Brazil (mentioning a non-WC team) had Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Kaka', Juninho, Cafu, Lucio, Roberto Carlos, Rivaldo and more.
Netherlands had Van Der Saar, Seedorf, Davids, Overmars, Stam, Van Nilsterooy, and more.
England had Terry, Ferdinand, A.Cole, Neville, Gerrard, Lampard, Beckham, Rooney.
In the vast majority of cases, no team from today has a line-up as prestigious as their past line-up from 20 years ago.
Sure, we can say Italy is worse than what it used to be in 2002/2006 .... but I argue that the same is true for almost every other team.
Which is why saying Italy is not so good because of comparisons to the past doesn't hold as an argument.
The same argument would have to be applied to every team .... but wherever I look (not only on redcafe), it is almost exclusively applied to Italy.
Never forget
2006 was an absolute unit of a team, wildly underestimated abroad IMHO.
It reminds me a bit of Inter's treble team, may people saw them as darkhorses that just clicked, discounting the level of competence, experience and talent they carried.
But - 1982 was better in my eyes.
It had more than 11 players oozing class at the same level, while 2006 was more a bunch of good players bolted on that Buffon-Cannavaro-Pirlo-Totti spine.
This is bs….They have been very good in the Euros during this period. Reached the final in 2012… In 2016 they lost on PKs to Germany after defeating Belgium in the GS and Spain in the R.16…. And of course they won Euro 2020 on the back of a record unbeaten run.
Ok, so they got to one final and got decimated by a team that decided not to start a striker. Euro 2016 wasn't a good tournament for them and they lost to ROI (one of the worst teams in the competition), the fact that's your argument says it all. Have a nice day.