Quote:
Originally posted by True_Moose:
Very true johnny. I haven't watched that much Italy, but on paper they have it. We don't get that much soccer on this side of the pond, so I don't know how they play. Are they somewhat like Liverpool in the sense of not showing up?
Well, Spain just won 1-0 over Russia. Not very convincing: they missed 3 or 4 crosses which would have been sure goals. Vicente played really well though. Should have won by a much larger margin, IMO.
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I'm not sure if the comparison with Liverpool holds any water, at least Italy wins something every now and then.
It's just that they rely on their defence very heavily. If they manage to score 1-0, they tend to fall back and defend that lead, and often enough they get away with it. But sometimes they fail to hold on to the lead, like against South Korea during the last worldcup. Italy was far superior on the Koreans, but their chickenshit mentality got the better of them that time. Instead of pushing forward and score 1 or 2 goals to stuff them away, they decided to lean on the 1-0 lead until the final whistle. We all know how that ended.
[ 06-12-2004, 05:02 PM: Message edited by: johnny ]