GET IN! Forza Azzurri.
Balotelli has once again proved the doubters and the haters wrong. What more does the man have to do so that you will stop pleading for him to be dropped or to change? Never stop Mario. Keep scoring goals like this.
Cool as you like!
Individual highlights Pirlo putting in one of the best passing performances ever seen for Italy
With one swing of the boot it all changed. Greece advancing? Who would have thought. Poland and Russia ebbed like the tide that brought them in during the second half of their matches and the work that had brought the sides to this point was nullified by two moments of brilliance on the counter attack. I was genuinely shocked, more shocked than I was when I found out that Spurs fired Redknapp. My eyes gradually looked more and more like Özil’s as the matches progressed and it slowly became apparent that the two worst teams on the group (entering the final day) were going to be progressing. This made me feel uncomfortable.
Some of the other emotions I encountered throughout the day:
Bewilderment is the best honestly, all clairvoyance aside I could have never foretold THIS result. Russia wasn’t going to lose, they would at least get a draw. Poland could triumph over the Czech’s minus their talisman couldn’t they? These teams had too much quality and were easily the best in the group, right? I was strangely and tolerably proven wrong. The team that worked harder and was more disciplined won both of these matches. This is becoming a trend. We have this basic assumption that individual and collective quality will prevail in every match, but it is a fallacy. It is much harder to unlock a disciplined defense than it is to beat a few isolated opponents on the counter. Chelsea’s opponents fell pray to this trap in the Champions League and Russia (who had been one of the better teams in the tournament) have just been victimized by the same ploy.
These results portend to the rest of Round 3 being equally provocative, will Germany and Spain even go through? Can the English “work ethic” that we have seen in the first two matches continue to get results? Will either Croatia or Italy advance?
All of these questions will be answered in the coming days and it promises to be some of the best football we will see all year. I can’t say that I predicted (or wanted) the results today, but it restored some of my faith in footballing parity and I look forward to more possible upsets rolling in like fog on the horizon.
At one point this morning it struck me that Andrea Pirlo is the footballing equivalent of Joaquin Phoenix’s character in the trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film “The Master” (below). The experienced Italian kicks about with a sort of jaded self-assuredness that is not reflected in his words, but body language and rhythm. Beat. Wait. Think. Act. Repeat. This is what makes Pirlo loved, he plays the game with a nous is derived from playing and living well. He is unique.
The Master finds himself in situations (positive or precarious) that he has gotten out of time and time again; there have been ups and downs, but he is consistent, like time on a SIN curve. Ebbing and flowing.
(how good does this look…)
Wesley Sneijder has been really good, but the Dutch midfield has been really bad:
Wesley Sneijder has been the most influential player in the side so far and has created an unprecedented amount of chances for his team (10 in the first game alone). The passing range and elegance that he shows is truly a joy to behold, but most of his service has been squandered by selfish play or poor touches. Playing slightly removed on the left, he has been able to link together the distinct areas of the team and keep a good amount of possession in attacking areas. Unfortunately, when things get clogged there are too few other players that are willing to interchange or formulate a creative solution for a complex defense (like the German’s)
The Dutch #10 is the glue that is barely keeping the side in contention and it must be said that Bert van Marwijk has done a pretty terrible job managing the Netherlands. The way that he has designed the tactics makes 1 or 2 players (thus far Sneijder and De Jong according to OptaStats) do all the heavy-lifting and the others play selfish and lackluster football. I’d suggest dropping Mark van Bommel and the recently tortured Arjen Robben, but the ripples that would have through the team and the Dutch media will probably prevent a major change from ever happening.
A tactical system that might have proved superior is a 4-4-2 with Afellay, De Jong, Sneijder, and Strootman all alternating through the midfield (but with De Jong generally hanging back of course). The versatility that team provides would have eliminated the silly issues with devision of labor that a top-flight coach should not be making. When there are clear channels to an attack they became easily blocked. Wasn’t Total Football designed to bypass this tactical weakness in the first place? The Dutch need to revert to a system around manipulating spaces and positions instead of the boring rigidity that they have brought to their first two contests.
The centre-back pairing is shambolic at best.
I suppose some blame could be placed on the young Jetro Willems who has repeatedly resorted to fouling after being beaten, but the heart of the defense, Mathijsen and Heitinga, has really been terrible in organization, positioning, and marking. Today against the German’s there was a free header for Badstuber in the box and shortly after Mathijsen was pulled out wide, leaving Willems one-on-one to deal with the much bigger Mario Gomez. These are just mistakes that a top defense cannot be making and, for all of their possession, it is hard to disguise just how vulnerable they are at the back. The fact that a team with this core at the back was able to make it to a World Cup final is almost unfathomable. Holland should really start scouting and rewarding defenders if they want to be continue being competitive in the next 10 years.
Performance like those from Mandzukic and Modric today can make a man turn to vices.
Even though the Dutch were the shock upset of the round, their loss cannot be attributed to Sneider who put in a magisterial passing display in the middle of the park. His driven, lofted, and curled balls repeatedly opened up the Danish defense and they should have certainly been unlocked. The fact that he didn’t have 2 or 3 assists can only be attributed to the terrible finishing on display from the Oranje as a whole. This opta stats chart shows just how much influence he had over proceedings, controlling the middle of the park and creating a sphere where everything attacking went through him.
Poland and Ukraine: the unlikely duo. This is the second of a two part series by John Ray on the history of Euro 2012’s respective hosts, allowing fans to become familiar with the two nations that will soon be placed under a microscope. Read part one here.
The idea of anything being a solely Ukrainian enterprise was barely being conceived twenty years ago. The country had, after all, just ended an 80 year long relationship in which all decisions from (the capitals) Kharkiv and Kyiv came from Moscow. Ukrainians have a saying “a hungry wolf is stronger than a satisfied dog”; it is emblematic of the culture that has been produced by decades of necessary survivalists under the harsh realities of Soviet life. The people of the Ukraine have had to fight for their rights, food, and land as they have been repeatedly tread on the path to and from Russia. While the Poles were able to gain their liberation after World War II, the Ukrainians had no such luck; they were controlled by the Soviet Union after the Peace of Riga in 1922 and only gained their own sovereign territory after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991.
Now in the era of Ukrainian independence things are getting better, but slowly. There is still corruption and controversy, ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko is currently being jailed and there are photos of the bruising from her being (allegedly) beaten in prison. Football has always been a way for the country to come together and embrace play over a bleak outlook, there is a stereotype of Ukrainian efficiency in sport (that was developed by the Kiev teams of the 70s and 80s), but the new players and teams are as enjoyable as efficient and have become a real joy to watch. Euro 2012 will either place the building blocks for the countries continued success, or quickly leave them as learning spectators at their own tournament.
Gazza just recently sat down with Umbro to discus some of the “myths” that were generated over the course of his career. They were all true…if you want to hear about someone almost burning their nose off with a lighter for £500 (that Gazza double or nothing’d him)/a football star using a pneumatic drill then this is the video for you.
