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ITALY thread

Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

Seems like Prandelli has resigned..

I have a feeling its going to be Mancini.

I think they should just sign Capello :P
 
Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

Such a shame that Prandelli resigned. The only one in Italy who had a vision for how Italian football should work - from an Azzurri Serie B team to a reserve league. He had a project.

Unless it's Mancio, Ancelotti or Montella, I think we're going to have a dark period for the Italian NT. I think Spalletti or Allegri will come in....
 
Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

@Milanista

Are you listening to Prandelli's post-match press conference? He is throwing down the gauntlet.
 
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Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

Yes, it has to be said that Prandelli did a great job after Lippi's shambles in 2010, lets not forget Euro 2012.

There was just something that seemed really wrong with Italy after the first game, blame it on the weather or Prandelli's selections I can't really say what it was.
 
Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

Mancini woah Mancini woah he came from Italy to manage Italy
 
Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

i'm glad i didn't clear my afternoon for this (already made this mistake for the costarica game and had to work the whole week end, which made me much angrier than the result itself :P ).

anyway, i just finished watching the game (had to watch it alone at home, coz everyone else already watched it), and i gotta say i'm disappointed. terrible performance, much worse than the costarica game. costarica played a great game against us, which made our performance appear a little less embarassing. but this uruguay team is not even in the same league as costa rica.
i haven't seen many games so far because of work and... "life", but this uruguay team is by far the worst team i've seen. i mean england look like "brasil 1970" compared to uruguay. and we couldn't even score a goal against such a mediocre team?
they're basically a midclass serie b team with a very good cb (godin) and 2 world class strikers. and when u factor in that the 2 world class strikers were pretty much ineffective today, what u're left is.... italy couldn't beat a serie b team

and when i say "serie b team" i'm not meaning it in a dramatic figurative way; this is really what they're worth. their starting cm (rios) has been this season the worst player in a serie b team (palermo). and his teammates aren't much better than him (apart from suarez, cavani and godin). alvaro pereira, rodriguez and ramirez might perhaps play for a midclass serie a team, but that's it. and the collective quality of the team is actually even lower than the individual quality of its players.
and we couldn't beat this team? of course we gotta go home! and of course prandelli must resign.
i honestly don't know how uruguay even managed to make it to the world cup, but if we can't beat this kind of team we don't deserve to be there either.

i'm a big fan of prandelli. not only i like him as a coach, but i admire him as a man. but that's the most important lesson sport can teach us. u gotta accept the result and take responsibility. if u can't perform when it matters, if u can't even beat teams which are considerably weaker than u, then u gotta face the music and go home.

respect to cesare for doing the right thing. that's what's expected from a Man in this situation. and once again prandelli proved he's a Man.
i'm sorry to see him leaving, coz i know he can do a lot better than this.... i know he has done a lot better than this. but this is what must happen in such situations. this is what should always happen in such situations. we live in a country were taking responsibility is seen as a sign of weakness.... there's always someone else, or something else to blame for our failures. it's refreshing to see something different, for a change.

it's also hilarious to see how many people are fixating over irrelevant episodes, which had nothing to do with our performance (and failure), like the marchisio red card or suarez's bite....
.. goes to show how football fans are really much more interested in drama and folklore than in actual football.:TD:
 
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Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

were England that that bad and made Italy look really good in 1st game?
 
Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

LFC Albania said:
were England that that bad and made Italy look really good in 1st game?
Click to expand...

I think this is the wrong way to view that game. I think both England and Italy were superb in that match, and both teams had the energy, motivation and months of preparation for that one game. The problem is imo that both teams focused all their energy and preparation for that 1 game, that they were unable to cope with the tempo and styles of Costa Rica and Uruguay.

Italy and England were too European and only cared about each other, which backfired pretty dramatically.
 
Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

I think I may actually vomit if Mancini does get appointed. I'd like to see Montella take up the job but I'm not sure if he'll want to leave Fiorentina.
 
Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

Damjan said:
I think I may actually vomit if Mancini does get appointed. I'd like to see Montella take up the job but I'm not sure if he'll want to leave Fiorentina.
Click to expand...

Mancini is a winner.

And given that it's not a day to day job he might not piss players and staff off as much
 
Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

A disgrace, nothing to add to those who saw this 'fair' game.

And people talk about 'we didn't play well, people focus on excuses', sure, I'm going to think about football and performance while there is an irrational animal (Suarez) on the other side doing whatever the fuck he wants while seeing Marchisio getting an unfair straight red and destroying this already tense and difficult match in football terms. Sure, let's talk about our performance in this game where we clearly where treated fair and depended only on ourselves, of course....

In 2010 nobody said anything about the referees, because it was 100% our fault, we don't need to find an excuse when we fail, we didn't then and we don't need it now, we only need the facts and the facts were decided by the referee today.

And also, we were in fact making a decent game, much better then against Costa Rica, this was a very tense match and very defensive on both sides, extremely even, but some people don't understand that think we were playing bad just because there were no goal opportunities (for both sides in 90% of the game), but you can't expect everyone to understand that.

Also, Balotelli made impossible for Immobile play in the first half since he was diving EVERY ball he lost and thinking (as always) only about himself and even faking a head injure to gain attention and water at one point. In the second half it became even more impossible because Pirlo started making the wors t game of his carrer probably with poor passes the entire rest of the game, Immobile didn't got ONE SINGLE good pass in the ENTIRE GAME and yet, and yet, I see people criticizing him, him playing completely alone upfront and all (Balotelli does not count as a teamate). Ridiculous.

And that peace of shit Uruguayan player #18 in this pic was making Chiellini stop showing the bite marks, when you think Suarez is the only bastard in the squad, no, there were two.

Chiellini.jpg


Chiellini:

“Today everybody will talk about our elimination, but people should also talk about a match decided by a referee, by decisive moments. Marchisio’s red card is ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is the red card that Suarez did not receive. We knew that they could only hurt us with set pieces. Unfortunately that’s exactly what happened. People will talk of failure, but I do not agree. There was only one team that deserved to progress to the last 16 and that team was us."

And Chiellini continued, telling Sky Sports Italia: "Suarez is a sneak and he gets away with it because FIFA want their stars to play in the World Cup.
'I'd love to see if they have the courage to use video evidence against him. The referee saw the bite mark too, but he did nothing about it."

Suarez:

"I had contact with his shoulder, nothing more, things like that happen all the time. I don't know anything, if FIFA analyse each case separately it's going to be complicated."

phdzcy.gif

This is not football, and so this match can't be fully judged in a football point of view.

Prandelli resigning was just logical, and the only good thing that came of out all this. We need someone that knows Balotelli is not a professional football player to start with, we'll never win anything without that basic thought.

First Croatia, now Italy, and Chile is next be sure. What a great tournament, just fantastic.
 
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Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

A free piece of advice, my friend.
Never post when emotions take over.
Tomorrow you will read that post and you will be embarassed with yourself.


Been there too, i know how it feels.

Great post Ben.
I can see your point about Suarez from an Italian point of view.

But there is another angle to this. Stars like Suarez are supposedly to be role models ( i know they don't want to be, but they are). I can see kids on play grounds over the world biting each other. I know most kids have more sense than that, but still.


I would be shocked if somebody would bite me while playing football.


Gruttend for Italy. I also agree with Stef's analysis. England and Italy focussed too much on that first game.
 
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Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

Embarrassed myself?

You should be embarrassed for coming here with that air of superiority thinking you know how I'll feel about my own post.

Keep that useless advice to yourself.
 
Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

Wasn't meant to sound superior. If i offended you, i'm sorry.
I just read your post after Lo Zio's, maybe you should try that...

And like i've said, i've done those things too, i'm not above them...

Let's just say that i don't agree with you.

If Italy would have won against Costa Rica, all the "injustices" wouldn''t have mattered at all...so the players have to blame themselves. Prandelli showed his class by walking away...if you are convinced that you are victim of an injustice despite the fact that your team played well, you don't walk away...

Anyway, no offense meant. Let's agree to disagree.
 
Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

Wouldn't have mattered at all for you, again assuming things for others?

If you don't agree with someone you say 'I don't agree', it's really easy, not 'you will be embarrassed with yourself', have a little respect for other opinions even if (clearly) you think yours is so superior at a point the others are 'embarrassing'.

And yeah, let's leave it at that.
 
Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

gerd said:
Great post Ben.
I can see your point about Suarez from an Italian point of view.
But there is another angle to this. Stars like Suarez are supposedly to be role models ( i know they don't want to be, but they are). I can see kids on play grounds over the world biting each other. I know most kids have more sense than that, but still.
Click to expand...
i gotta disagree with u on that gerd.
football players are supposed to be role models? since when? i know they sometimes "happen to become" role models... for those kids whose parents are too lazy to actually spend time with em and educate em... but to say they're "suppposed" to be role models, that's a stretch.
football players are not supposed to be role models... most football players (stars included) are uneducated ignorants, who can't even string two sentences together and whose only talent is to play a game. we're talking about people with no real interests, no ambitions in their lives, apart from those related to the game they play.... and u think theese are supposed to be role models?
of course there are a few exceptions, but even them (the good ones, the "smart" ones) are hardly a models to aspire to. take the smartests, classiests football players around; del piero, rui costa, maldini, zanetti, seedorf.... we're amazed at the fact they're not as dumb as their colleagues, that they got some class and that they got other interests apart from football in their lives.... which is great. but compare them to me or u or stefano or any other guy who had a half decent education, and they're 1 step above an illiterate.

we're talking about ignorant halfwits, who reach the peak of their entire life when they're 25 and whose life becomes socially irrelevant once they retire at 35, 37, 38 years old.
if we were to picture our society as a ladder they would occupy one of the last rungs. why on earth should theese people be role models?

perhaps is it because they play football and kids love football, so they might tend to idolize theese guys? bullshit.
i was a kid and i loved football. and yet i never picked a football player as a role model. fuck, i never had any role model at all (what a stupid concept is that anyway!).
my favourite player was maradona. i loved the way he played and i badly wanted to have his talent..... but i never wanted to be maradona. i never wanted to become like maradona. i never wanted to emulate him in everything he did, because as any 8 years old kid, i could see he was a stupid, classless person. i just wanted to have his talent in playing football, that's all.

kids are perfectly capable to tell right from wrong. when u see a kid biting his teammate, u shouldn't blame suarez. u should blame that little, classless, disrespecful shit! and u should discipline that kid.
but of course parents don't do that... because it's difficult.... because it takes time and energy and patience and commitment to properly raise a kid, to teach him some values, to punish him when he does something wrong and to follow through.
... and so we get to the point where people blame the so called "wrong models"... as if a football player or a movie star or the television should be responsible for the education of their own child.

suarez is just a deranged animal who can control his instincts (and who needs professional help). but a parent, whose son bites his mates, in an attempt to emulate suarez, and who blames it on the "role models" instead of disciplining his own son.....well that parent is a much bigger threat to society than suarez himself.... and he should be sterilized immediately so that he won't raise and "educate" any more children.

sorry for the little off topic rant, but i just find this "role model" thing extremely stupid. to me, that's just an abdication of parental responsibilities, and i find it much more worrying than watching an idiot with the iq of jellyfish biting chiellini.
but of course keep in mind i don't have the same experience u have with kids, so i might also be talking complete nonsense here. ;)
 
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Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

Well Italy did not just lost due to the bad referee.

The red card against Marchisio was harsh. But it was clearly a foul and his foot was way too high to play the ball. It was just infront of the referee and if he thinks this foul was on purpose he can show the red one, but I think yellow would have been ok.
On the other side Marchisio could have pulled his foot back, but he did not - he is also to blame, it's not just the referee.
If he would not hit him slightly under the knee, he would have never been given a red card.

When it comes to Suarez, we need not to discuss. He deserved a red card and as well a long ban. I hope this will follow at least.

Nevertheless Chiellini hit him afterwards with his elbow. Of course I can understand his reaction, but this should also have ben punished with a red card.

In the end I think Buffon said it right: The referee, of course, had influence on the match, but it is not the main reason they lost and failed in groupstage. They played not their best football and that is why they do not move on.

I had the feeling the just wanted to keep the 0:0 - this is always a bad idea. Failing to score in two games normally is not enough to move into KO stage - it seems only greece is able to do so... ;)
 
Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

yeah, the ref was terrible but his decisions didn't change the course of the game. the red card on marchisio was way too harsh.... but that red card only occurred after 60 minutes of football. 60 minutes during which, not only we didn't score, we didn't even create any decent scoring chance.
it would be ridiculous to complain about playing with 10 men, when we didn't look dangerous with 11 men on the pitch.

and as for the suarez episode, it might have mattered had suarez scored a goal afterwards. but he didn't, godin did. after that goal there were only 10 minutes left in the game and uruguay no longer needed to score, so it's not like suarez's red card could have made much of a difference.
not to mention the fact uruguay wasn't awarded a penalty clear as day (chiellini's grab on cavani), so it would be hyporitical to complain about marchisio's red card and suarez bite, while conveniently forgetting about that unawarded penalty.

bottom line is; we lost against costarica and uruguay (which is a much weaker team than costarica, despite their reputation). and we couldn't even score a single goal against theese 2 teams.
we don't get to complain about anything really.
 
Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

As a (former) youth coach i see kids emulating the stars all the time, on and off the pitch. So, yes they are role models.
Are there football players who are not supposed to be role models ? Plenty, thousands even at the World Cup there are dozens of them. But once a football player wins money outside football (publicity) with what he does on the pitch, he becomes a star and stars are role models.
Are they role models for everyone ? Obviously not, since there are people who never had role models (i'm not sure i had role models, i don't remember)...
And if my son would bite another kid on a football pitch, i would give him a ban for a couple of weeks. Would i blame Suarez ? I don't know. Primarily i would not, that is the same reaction as saying that Italy lost because of the ref yesterday. It is being blind for the obvious truth (the truth being that there is something wrong with the kid who bites). But if a high profile player would not do that, maybe the kid would never had tought about biting an opponent on a football feed.
If Zidane hadn't performed the roulette, my son would not do it on the pitch, to me that is exactly the same as biting.

That is also the reason why (as a cycling fan) i'm furious at Armstrong. This guy became an international icon and a role model...until it transpired that he was a fraud (his case is much worse than Suarez', after the WC Suarez is forgotten).

Perhaps there is a better example of role model behaviour: a player who refuses a penalty, who says to the ref that he just fell and wasn't tripped by the defender....taking that example kids will do the same...Of course this is also more about the kid than about the role model, but the role model gives an incentive to the kid to do that, he becomes an inspiration...

Sorry for the off-topic.

So, my friend i still main the stupid notion that football stars are role models no matter if they or you like it or not...
 
Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

It is kind of true players are role models. They're not supposed to be role models, but they are. After Euro 2004 a kid on my team spit at someone because of Totti.
 
Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

wow, that's messed up. :CONFUSE:
but u see my point is, if a kid would even consider to do something so disgusting, what does that tell u about his parents. have they ever spent some time with their son? have they taught him anything about sport values or respect?
and even assuming totti never spat on that danish player, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that such an uncivilized kid would have simply perpetrated some other despicable act? like i don't know kicking his mate in the nuts or something like that.

anyway, like i already said, i don't really have the same kind of experience in dealing with kids u got gerd, and your arguments (and damjan's) do make a lot of sense, so i might well be wrong here. :))
i'm just baffled by the notion of role models. and i always found it ridiculous to consider a football player as some model to aspire to. but i guess that's just me
 
Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

I actually agree with you lo zio. the parents(or whoever act as a parent) are indeed the ones who are fully responsible of the behaviours of the kids. not the kids themselves nor the footballers. most of the time, footballers aren't even responsible of their own fame. if the tv's and celebrities are full of sh*t, they should teach that to their kids it's no use to be interested in their personal side, let alone idolize them and spend some damn time with them kids. if the kid has no 'decent' friends, they should be friends, if the kid has no darling, they should be the darling. if the parents don't do that, most of the time kids look for the "missing" piece outside of their family. be it tv, be it those moron celebrities, be it 'bad' friends in the school, be it even drugs.

the essential reason to watch a football game is the sport itself, not to play 'god' and judge those who play football. "hey this guy look very selfish, oh how I hate him!", "that guy look very classy, I love him" and actually and most of the time you don't even know that guy whoever he is in fact. as I said many times I find it stupid that people are so interested in the characters of celebrities, esp sportsmen.

p.s. I'm not saying footballers like pepe or suarez should keep being whoever they are. it's their own problem to get their behaviours sorted out.
 
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Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

I agree but footballers (like any other celebrity) have an impact on children, it's pretty much inevitable. Because most footballers in terms of playing the game what kids want to be, they copy what they do in order to be as close as they can to their hero. I know this because I sort of do it myself to. I literally jog on the pitch the same way Pirlo does and I stroke the ball too, never got rid of it.
 
Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

imo, emulating their way of doing the job(playing football) is perfectly okay but my point is that emulating their personal character(spittin, fightin, divin, bitin etc), I think it's what's wrong about it. and pirlo's never a bad example(when on the pitch) as a footballing idol. :) but as you said, mixing things is kind of inevitable esp in the internet age.
 
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Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

Daniel__Juve's frustration is perfectly understandable, I share it for the most part and I'm not Italian and have no connections to Italy what so ever. When watching the match I didn't even care who won it, but after I think that Italy was treated unfairly. Many other teams has been treated unfairly in this WC so far as well, by the way, and this happens in every major tournament.

Any post match repercussions for Suarez won't help Italy though, but that's life. Poetic justice would be that Uruguay lost heavily in their next match and that Suarez got banned for a long, long time.
 
Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

FIFA should punish Luis Suarez just as Mauro Tassotti´s in WC1994, 8 matches. Both using the videotape as evidence.
Although I´d rather be bitten than to get elbowed in the face.
bad karma follows you around...
 
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Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

lol! if that's the case, then karma took its sweet time to exact revenge on italy :D

anyway, since the tassotti episode has been brought up, i'd like to point out something.
right after that match, tassotti apologised for his loss of temper. and i'm not just talking about some meaningless public statement in front of the press (although he also did that). he personally phoned luis enrique and told him he was embarassed by his actions and that he didn't know what he was thinking. and luis enrique, being the monumental class act he is, accepted his apologies.

the exact same thing happened in 2006 between de rossi and mcbride. not only daniele publicly apologised, he also personally apologised to mcbride in private.
that's what class is about. everyone can make a mistake (and the adrenaline that comes with a competitive performance can sometime cloud our judgement for a second).
but a Man always takes responsibility for his actions.
..yet something tells me chiellini shouldn't really expect any call from suarez :P
 
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Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

Footballers have no moral imperative to kids other than their own. Biters should be punished for biting. Biting is immoral. That is all.

Furthermore, if your kid bites someone because a famous person bit someone you are to blame. You're the parent. You're the one with the moral imperative to raise your kid not to act immorally. The only other people with a moral imperative to act a certain way are those that you entrust your kid to. eg. teachers, babysitters - those people who put themselves out there for the purpose of looking after kids. But it is also the parent's responsibility to vet these people, so you're not blameless if these people do a bad job.

Sick of parents blaming others.
 
Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"

lo zio said:
lol! if that's the case, then karma took its sweet time to exact revenge on italy :D

anyway, since the tassotti episode has been brought up, i'd like to point out something.
right after that match, tassotti apologised for his loss of temper. and i'm not just talking about some meaningless public statement in front of the press (although he also did that). he personally phoned luis enrique and told him he was embarassed by his actions and that he didn't know what he was thinking. and luis enrique, being the monumental class act he is, accepted his apologies.

the exact same thing happened in 2006 between de rossi and mcbride. not only daniele publicly apologised, he also personally apologised to mcbride in private.
that's what class is about. everyone can make a mistake (and the adrenaline that comes with a competitive performance can sometime cloud our judgement for a second).
but a Man always takes responsibility for his actions.
..yet something tells me chiellini shouldn't really expect any call from suarez :P
Click to expand...

Suarez is actually in denial, saying he and Chiellini 'just had some contact, it happens in the box' which makes it even more despicable.
 
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