7/4/06: Italy 2 – Germany 0
Long live the Catenaccio. Forza Azzurri. Whatever slogan you prefer, Italy continues to own Germany in the World Cup. Employing its traditional philosophy that defense wins championships (isn’t that what is is said about all sports), Italy throttled the German offense for 120 minutes. Italy itself had few chances to score in the first 90 minutes, but came out in full force at the start of the extra time looking for the winning goal. That the Italians, most noted for their defensive prowess, changed their tactic so early after the 90th minute I think surprised Germany completely. After playing it tactical, they went for broke.
The Italians hit the post not only once but twice in the opening 5 minutes of the extra time. First it was Gilardino with a cheeky little turn and shot that surprised Lehman, dribbled under his arm and hit the left post. There was nothing subtle about Zambrotta’s blast that clanged off of the crossbar. The Germans, like that vibrating crossbar, were punch drunk from the Italian 1-2 and never fully recovered until Podolski, in the 106th minute, found himself wide open in front of goal and headed a cross from Odonkor but way wide of target.
Late in the extra time Pirlo simply took over. First there was a wicked shot which forced Lehman to make an excellent save. Undaunted, Pirlo took the deflection and rather than shooting it right away, he dribbled it parallel to the penalty box drawing one and then 2 defenders with him (and surely Lehman who was tracking the ball in the direction of Pirlo’s dribble), before laying off a pass to Fabio Grosso, who in one motion fired a left footed curling shot, which barely beat Lehman to that post that he had just moved slightly away from. The knockout punch came two minutes later when delPiero received a lovely little pass against the grain from Gilardino and beat Lehman with a shot to the upper right hand corner.
Pirlo in the offensive side of midfield and Gatusso in the defensive half were magnificent all game long. They neutralized Ballack extremely effectively. Germany missed Fringgs very much as he is the kind of battler that himself could have neutralized some of the those Italian midfielders. There were two other keys to the game as I saw it. The effect of Buffon and Odonkor. Buffon made two world class saves, one he deflected above the bar and another he almost seemed to intimidate Schneider into shooting high with his crouch. Regarding Odonkor, he was key in wins against Poland and Argentina, terrorizing both teams with his incisive runs down the right hand side and his good crosses. He wasn't able to do that against Italy because the Italians matched up better with him than those other teams (Italy's defenders are so effectove at stopping crosses they seemed to block all German crosses from the flanks).
No play symbolized Italy’s dedication to the catenaccio more than Materazzi, who put his head in the direction of a long blast. Knocked out briefly, the Italian rose up, wooly eyed, shaking his head like a boxer who has just gotten up from an 8 count. Materazzi continued on and it was Germany who were knocked out instead.
No comments:
Post a Comment