Game in a sentence
A tense 0-0 draw goes past to extra time, in which England stuns the football world by losing (against Italy) on penalties in a tournament quarterfinal.
Observations
- England didn’t change much from their victory over Ukraine, except, marginally, the fact that Welbeck played in front of Rooney in more of a 4-4-1-1 than a 4-4-2. Otherwise, Milner out on the right, Young out on the left, Gerrard roaming forward in midfield, Parker supporting from the back. Go!
- Cesare Prandelli on other hand tinkered quite a bit, going with a diamond midfield: 4-1-2-1-2, with Mario Balotelli starting in place of Antonio Di Natale and Bonucci in for the injured (hammy) Giorgio Chiellini. The narrowness of the formation exposed Italy a bit in the early stages, as England found space in behind the midfield on more than one occasion in the early going.
- That allowed them a bit of space for Gerrard and Milner to exploit, the latter with a cross in the first five minutes that met the feet of Glen Johnson, who was unable to scoop the ball with power at Gigi Buffon. England started the match brightly, or at least above expectations.
- Still, Italy were the dominant side and managed a raking shot from Daniele De Rossi that pinged off the bar in the first three minutes. As they settled into the new formation, Italy managed on more than occasion to threaten the English goal by over-the-top passes to Mario Balotelli. The English back four was chronically incapable of playing the offside trap through much of the game, and if not for some lazy finishing (and stalwart defending on at least two occasions from Lescott and Terry), Italy would have headed to the second half ahead.
- As the game progressed however, some individual flaws on both teams became apparent. Balzaretti was over matched on more than one occasion defending in left back, although he improved greatly as the game went on. And Antonio Cassano’s link up play was often wayward, as was his shooting.
- For England, Wayne Rooney had a poor night, and looked tired. He was glistening with sweat even before the end of the first half, and often lacked for pace and incision with his crosses. Also poor: Ashley Young. Caught in possession, unable to connect his passes in the final third, he became an attacking liability. Welbeck did very well but looked isolated. Milner had a “better game.”
- As the game went on, England’s “two banks of four” reared its head, and any forward thinking movement slowly died away. Italy kept probing, and in the 57th minute, Hodgson threw the dice. Off went Welbeck and Milner—on came Andy Carroll and Theo Walcott. Which changed…
- …not much of anything. Carroll looked lively but had precious few moments to make it count. Meanwhile, the Italian midfield is clearly their strength in this tournament, Andrea Pirlo first among them. They hummed around the two banks of four. And so the game ground down to 90+3 minutes, and aside from a gilt-edged chance for Rooney to over head kick the ball in in the last minute, Italy had most of the opportunities at that point. Extra time! EURO 2012!
- By this point, England had no pretense of scoring, which means that Roy Hodgson must have dedicated a whole extra ten minutes to penalty practice. Meanwhile Nocerino thought he’d headed in the winner in the 114th minute of play, which was rightly called offside. Italy should have put this game away here with the pressure on the England final third, but…
- Penalties! And—you guessed it!—England lost. Despite Montolivo missing his first penalty completely, Ashleys Young and Cole missed, and Italy were through to the semifinal against Germany. The highlight of the entire game? Andrea Pirlo’s cool-as-you-like Panenka penalty. It was well-deserved for Italy to go through, who were far more positive on the night, and will hopefully get enough rest to make a contest out of it against Germany. Pirlo’s outstanding year continues.
Three stars
1. Andrea Pirlo
2. Federico Balzaretti
3. Steven Gerrard
andrea pirlo (131 passes) = england’s midfield ( 114 passes)
oh im sorry, pirlo had more than stevie g ( should have been helped out by his team) , scotty “comb over” parker, young and milner put together.
What a game! (sorry England fans!)
I was cheering for the Azzuri, but have to say I thought John Terry was a rock! If not for him this would never have gone to penalties.
I didn’t consider that he might have been poor at playing the offside trap, but still! it seemed like he blocked half of the shots italy took! (the other half being from outside the 18, directly at Hart…)
I know the gameplan that England were give, and it took them the distance and they had a chance, but I can’t belive they didn’t use Walcott a bit more! When he subbed on i thought he was gonna eat Balzaretti alive! And the one time he ran at him England had a very dangerous cross! But that was it!
Forgot to say,:
Awesome “game in a sentence” Whittal!!
Total domination, deserved win. England played “catenaccio” to perfection, but with the talent they have that was there only option. Watch out Germany, your cryptonite is ready! Forza Azzurri!!
I think Gerrard has been getting a little too much credit here. He gave the ball away frequently all tournament and hasn’t really had a chance to affect matches except with his delivery – which has been excellent, I’ll admit that. Not exactly a “star” performer for me though.
Ditto about Gerrard. His biggest plus to the game from the second half onwards was to provide dead ball service. That looked like the only way England would score in this match once Wellbeck came off.
England got as far as they could. Young was really disappointing from an offensive standpoint, though he put in a lot of two way defensive work. Pirlo’s Panenka was epic!
Even though deserve has got nothing to do with it, happy that Italy won. England was shit.
That penalty from Pirlo will long be remembered in European Championship lore.
I absolutely loved that penalty kick by Pirlo, a touch of brilliance :)
All that drama just for the opportunity to get crushed by Germany on Thursday.
Best comment ever. Deutschland Deutschland über alles
^that’s the nazi anthem you stupid fuck^
That isn’t the Nazi anthem…do some research first before you post. It means “Germany above all!” It is in the German national anthem, Deutschlandlied or also called Das Lied der Deutschland…you wake the fuck up!
I mean where the hell did England think they would go with Roy Hodgson. I mean this coach sat on his ass all day and watched as Italy drubbed the shit outta England. His overly defensive approach, cost England this game. I think we all saw a growing trend these quaterfinals, the teams that spent their bloody time defending all throughout these quaterfinals example (Czech, Greece even France) lost. England should have taking heed from the demise of these teams, and should have adopted a slight attacking approach. But NO!!!!!!!!!!!! To make matters even worse, anytime they showed some Guile gowing forward, there was absolutely no support or no creativity and somehow they got chances. Think of a game where the English would have shot more or had the ball a little more than 40%. The worst part was letting the Italians pass their way through the park as if it was a practice match. There were tons of chances to press the shit outta Bonucci and Barzagli, but they never took the initiative to do so.
Im soo infuriated at the lack of spirit that this team showed. And they should be going home, nobody gave them any shot before and I made the mistake to have actually giving them a chance. Thank God that the best teams are in the semifinals, because to watch a match like this from England against Germany would be atrocious.
Italy obtained the much deserved victory.
England have a decent team but they do not deserve to be among the European football elite nations.
The Premiership might be the best league in the world, however, it’s the foreign players that make it so……not English players. Their decent, however, nowhere as good as world class foreign players. Their simply overhyped. World class players LFMAO. Wayne who????
I’m perplexed with the third star awarded to Gerrard. He had a poor game. His passing was poor all game. His contributions were insignificant.
A pity that Italy could not capitalize on their numerous chances in reqular time and put the game away.
The english media and many (but not all) of their fans are the largest hypocrites. They were quite critical of Greece in 2004 with the very defensive approach to games and manner in gettting results. Yet, when England park 9 players around the box………….not a peep from them.
HAHAHAHAHAHA ENGLAND PARKING THE BUS AGAINST…ITALY????
WHAT THE FCK. HAHAHAHA
IMAGINE WHAT WOULD’VE HAPPENED IF england PLAYED GERMANY OR SPAIN???? OH MY GOD. BRITISH PLAYERS CAN’T PLAY FOOTBALL HAHAHAHA ONLY SHREK/GERRARD KNOW HOW TO PLAY AT TIMES.
SEVERUS SNAPE FO’ DA’ WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN.
A few other comments I forgot to add earlier……………….
Where was the “White Pele”?
Gerrard is massively overhyped and will be well past his sell by date come next WC.
Joe Hart is a skilled keeper with a bright future, however, his facial gestures during the PK’s made him look like a clown;
When the hell are the Canadian broadcasters like TSN going to stop exposing us to the frickin bias English feed play-by-play commentators and the studio colour commentators e.g., Darren Anderton & Luke Wildman. Are there no other professional, competent and qualified non-British english speaking commentators? Let’s break this football broadcast link with England FFS.
lol i lost count of how many times the commentator said Balotelli plays for Manchester UNITED
Did you guys really watch this match? How did Gerrard sneak into three stars and Diamanti is not even mentioned? From the moment he was introduced (and later of course, Nocerino) England didn’t get a sniff of the ball.
I’m sorry Chuck, I’m going to have to apologize on behalf of whittall. He doesn’t watch football much. He just goes with whatever names have the sexiest latin roots. In gerrard however, I HAVE NO CLUE what he saw in him WHEN FCKING DE ROSSI, DIAMANTI, AND MOTELIVO ALL HAD MUCH BIGGER IMPACTS ON THE GAME THAN BALZARETTI HAHAHAH WHAT THE HECK.
Yikes. But we gotta give him a break, he’s just getting into the sport. He thinks england is amazing.
Steven Gerrard was second in both teams in defensive interceptions, first in successful tackles, and first in successful clearances. Had he not been on the pitch, Italy would have ran away with the result.
As for Balzaretti, he created five chances on the wing, the fifth highest for both teams was fourth overall in attacking third passes which is incredible as he was a fullback, was third overall in passes completed and maintained a 93% success rate.
Still baffles me (and fo sho the real Nocerino) how Diamanti does not get mentioned at all. Statistics are statistics, but he only decided the game.
I would like to know what Gerrard’s giveaway count was in the Italy match in comparison to his teammates or the opponents. I thought it would be worthwhile to compare it to the interceptions he made, clearences, and tackles that you noted here.
Some of u guys are fucken idiots. england with some of the players like wilshere cleverly walker jones bent afobe Sturidge would have killed this really shitty Italian team. It was a bad game plan to begin with but italy were far less impresive with all those chances. Ballotelli is beyond overated for missing a wid open net how many fucken times. Italy should be embarressed with the lack of quality in their finishing if anything here. There have been much better italy teams and lets not forget who invented the sport and who took a couple of centurys just to play the game and not get blown away by England. Forget about the 30s when all four teams that played were not even close to an english calibre team and way back when Italy would win a championship by a flip of a coin(thats bs) and talk about the future of the game. yes england have the best league in the world and its filled with most of the worlds best which will make the players in the league far better and that will mean the 40 percent of the league that is from the same place (england) will have the best national side one day. It 1000 years away but its likely to be sooner than wc 2030. Maybe one day one of theses amazing north american world class football players like rosario or donavoncan broadcast a game for these big games and mention all the talent on the field from the mls playing in the euro or wc. Lol. Anyway england invenetd the language and all the modern day sportys or mutated it like baseball/cricket or rugby/football cfl,nfl whatever. Even hockey was invented by the british soldiers in north america and it came long after the shit feild version. Look at the old olympic gold medals and who was the masters of a game they donated to canada when they cared not for it.golf tennis even b ball was invented in boston by a n irishmen born in canada. Look all of it up and prove me wrong. So look forward to better dayz from this horrible 4th in the world team and this italy team that will play again in a few weeks time and lets see what the future holds. Im an english born italian so dont think im all pro england. I dont like cheats like the series a,b and i do think that italy were an embarresement as well as england but italy got thumped by a spainish team that lost to england a few months back. Every dog has its day so look to the future and just hope for a good high tempo day. I loved the eng v swe game and the por v spn games the most in euro 2012 personally and hope for more.