Game Summary :: UEFA EURO 2020 Final Italy - England || In The Penalty Shoot-Out, Of Course
Italy 3-2 England on penalties
Goals: 0: 1 Shaw (2nd minute), 1: 1 Bonucci (67.)
Penalties: Berardi 1-0, Kane 1-1, Belotti saved, Maguire 1-2, Bonucci 2-2, Rashford to the post, Bernardeschi 3-2, Sancho saved, Jorginho saved, Saka saved
How was the game?
Pretty good for a finale. Endgames rarely have a reputation for being particularly entertaining because there is simply too much at stake: namely, everything. This European Championship final wasn't particularly spectacular either, but at least it was interesting and, in the end, extremely dramatic. England scored less than two minutesalready. Left winger Luke Shaw took a cross from right winger Kieran Trippier with a dropkick, the demanding shooting technique in which you let the ball tap briefly on the ground and then hit it finely (or tear the ligament because you hit an air hole) and then lead England. Italy was taken by surprise and struggled to get into the game. They succeeded in the middle of the first half, but the English didn't really have to worry. After all, they had seven players who were mostly defensive-minded. At that time, only the crown jewels and the fact that a Serb would win again next year at Wimbledon seemed safer than Jordan Pickford's goal in London.
Read also: Maybe One Last Big Tournament
What happened then?
England may be the motherland of football, Italybut is the motherland of soccer tactics. That's only half true, of course, but they are more innovative in the south than on the island. So Roberto Mancini thought about something. At the latest, his double change (for the immovable Immobile and Barelli came Cristanto and Berardi) after just under an hour changed not only his system, but also the game. The English, who have a strong duel, but not very secure on the ball or even creative central midfield and therefore mostly attack from the outside, suddenly saw these flanks being delivered. That was a problem for England: There was no getting past this suspension. On the one hand there was the sideline, on the other the playfully superior Italian midfield around Marco Verratti and Jorginho. So from now on only Italy played. Finally a poke fell but that can also be an expression of dominance. England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford managed to steer Verratti's header back into the post after a corner, but Leonardo Bonucci made it 1-1. Italy then had a few bad chances to take the lead, but they didn't want to risk anything. England did next to nothing. Neither in regular time nor in extra time.
Read more: The Copa After 28 Years
England and the penalty shoot-outs is a long, very, very long story, and Gareth Southgate also played a part in it. In the English football is coming home summer 1996 he missed the decisive penalty in the EM semifinals against Germany at Wembley and plunged an euphoric football nation into disaster within a second. As kitschy as football can be, exactly 25 years later, Southgate had the opportunity to redeem its wrongdoing in its own place. Only: he shot past again. Not literally, coaches are only allowed to watch the penalty shoot-out. His decisions around the showdown, however, can be seen as quite strange.
In the 120th minute, the last minute of extra time, he came on for Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford. Two highly talented, young attackers who had hardly played during the European Championship because they did not fit Southgate's wait-and-see and controlling style. So Southgate sent two players onto the field, most of whom he had passed over by then and whose only job was to convert a penalty. Players who are said to have been among the best shooters in training, but were unable to develop a feeling for the tournament, let alone for the game and its emotions, because they had to watch it from the bench. So they shot hypothermic, like robots - and didn't hit either of them. But because two Italians also missed, the chance was still there. Buyako Saka went to the point for the fifth, decisive penalty. A 19-year-old, also substituted, albeit earlier, was to take the most important penalty in recent English football history. He didn't score either.
Perhaps such a view is unfair, because football stories are always told from the end, from the result, and if the three had met, Southgate would have done everything right. Perhaps, however, when it comes to taking penalties, you should just pay more attention to psychology than math beforehand.
Was Italy's victory deserved?
Yes, in the end the best team of the tournament won. Italy convinced from the first game, hardly wobbled once, with Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonucci they have a center-back couple to fall in love with and with the hooking Federico Chiesa probably the offensive discovery of the tournament in the ranks. Of course we don't want to forget Giovanni di Lorenzo either, good man, that's for sure!
Read more: Nadal Listens To His Body
England, on the other hand, has to wonder how it could have happened to lose a game in which every single opponent (except for the goalkeeper) was smaller, weaker or slower than you. Instead of showing off their almost frightening physical superiority, they might even dare To transform one's own strength and speed into a more offensive idea of football, it wasn't just played waiting, cautiously, almost fearfully in the final. Exceptional offensive talents like Phil Foden, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho spent most of the tournament on the bench. Except for the penalty shoot-out. Karma is a bitch.
What else was going on?
The virus also celebrated a happy football festival in London. So let's wait for the Wembley variant.
The pictures from before the start of the game were at least as disturbing: Hundreds of fans overran the folders in front of Wembley Stadium in order to be able to see the game without tickets. It resulted in very ugly, violent scenes. 46 people are said to have been arrested.
The English fans, on the other hand, will celebrate as a success that the Italian anthem was less booed than the previous opponents. Congrats, lads, very classy!
Giorgios Chiellini's foul against Buyako Saka made it to the meme within minutes.
Lucky Italy won
There are also increasing reports in reputable British newspapers about the chauvinism with which opposing fans in London were confronted - not only with verbal insults, but also spitting on, fistfighting and threats of physical violence. In addition, the unsportsmanlike whistle concert always at the opponent's anthem, the extremely mildly punished laser pointer action in the semifinals, the completely inadequate controls at Wembley, the chaos in London and the rampant racist abuse against their own penalty takers. Sport is political after all - excessive nationalism, xenophobia, inadequate protection against the pandemic. England would not have been a worthy winner.
Read also: Olympic Games Tokyo 2020
You get to the point that England would not have been a worthy European champion. Not related to the team, which can obviously play football well. But the country, which - as they beautifully describe - has presented itself from the worst side through a variety of things (booing of the national anthems, etc.). In addition, I would like to mention the quasi "distortion of competition" by politics, in which any barriers fell for Wembley so that England would get a fan base as far as possible in the stadium. It was the same against Germany.
Do You Know What I Have Posted on
Post a Comment