The idea that an achievement has greater merit when you had a lower ex ante probability of succeeding is flawed

Germany has never ever beaten Italy in a major tournament so I can see why beating them is such a huge achievement.

italian, Spanish or Portuguese fans are free to talk about whatever they want. To me being a football fan has never really meant being all modest about it. Why would I? Think about it. Being a football fan, and a rather passionate at that, is an irrational thing in the first place. Or do you really think I actually "hate" italian people? They'd even get a capital "I" from me, just as long as they don't wear blue and kick against a ball.

This.
While this may or may not be to take a slap at me/us, I have to agree as well. We don't really have that many "rival nations" that we don't have a positive record against historically in competitive play. Brazil comes to mind, but we've only played them once, and we happened to have only one guy on the pitch and he happened to not have the greatest of days.

italy haven't lost to us in competitive play EVER. We've drawn a few times but we could never beat them so far. Beating them would be HUGE for us.

i bet chelsea fans disagree, oh, uhh

These ****ers even equaled us in the "Winning the big one on your soil" department.

They're in for a beating now. It's about ****ing time.

good thread already and it is only Monday.

italy are simply very hard to beat. a spain with david villa and a good torres only managed to beat them on penalties (!) in 2008

No wai, that would imply Chelsea fans are wrong about something.

Its mild trolling to make the build up of the game more intresting.

He is having a ok tournament, good hold up play and suits the system the best out of the forwards they have like you said but saying he has been very good is a stretch. His link up play has been nothing I wouldn't expect or point out as special, I think people get confused with good link up play and standard forward play, his decision making has been poor nearly every game also.

he is usually very, very isolated and forced to hold up the ball and stand his ground vs multiple opponents.
he did that exceptionally well(his great first-touch is an important asset) and it is far from "standard" imo
he is also making very good runs and constantly getting himself into good positions but def was quite unlucky a few times

Balotelli needs to play because Italy don't do well with midget strikers.

Cassano was mediocre for me. I'd like to see Giovinco for Cassano.

I already agree his hold up play has been good especially the strength he has shown on multiply occasion in the tournament, the guy is a beast.

his link up play has been nothing special, don't think there has been much chemistry with his other team mates, he made good runs against England when balls came form deep but he didn't anticipated a lot of standard passes as well, his shot selection has been lol bad.

Overall an ok tournament not "a very good tournament" i.m.o

Di Natale is the ideal counter-attacking player, so he would be the better option if Italy plan to play mainly on the counter. But they should rather try to play possesion football as against England, and then Balotelli is the much better option. He did quite well against England, good runs and hold-up play, just his finishing was bad and a few optimistic shots too much.

Agree that Cassano should be benched. He lacks fitness (no wonder after his heart surgery), loses the ball to easy, missplaces many simple passes and is too egoistic (it's a mystery to me how he managed to get 10 assists in just 16 games this season...). My favourite option would also be Giovinco, but I guess if Prandelli benchs Cassano he would replace him with Diamanti.

But Italy's biggest problem might be the right side. If Abate doesn't recover, Prandelli has no more natural wing-backs and full-backs on the right side (Maggio is supended). I assume he would then probably go back to a 3 man defence and Nocerino would play as right wing-back.

Di Natale has to start for Italy to have any chance. Cassano has been ****ing atrocious.