footballspectator

If anyone ever asks you why you love football, hand them a DVD of last night’s World Cup semi-final between Italy and Germany. To those that say “a goal-less match is dull” say “watch the first 90 minutes of this game” and then ask them if their opinion has changed. This match defined why football is called the beautiful game. It’s beautiful because it’s cruel, because a match can be decided in an instant, because a team can dominate and still be in danger of losing.

With one minute left to play, Italy fans were fearing that this would happen. Their team had dominated from the start displaying an attacking gusto not traditionally associated with Italian teams. They had created numerous chances but not converted them having been denied either by Lehmann or the frame of the goal.

To make things worse, Germany had played the role of villain, (usually played by the Italians) perfectly. There were decisions that went in their favour - notably a non-existent free kick on the edge of the box with minutes of normal time left. They did not return the ball when   Italy kicked the ball out of play for an injured player to receive treatment. Ballack dived constantly but was never booked. They also had chances in the dying minutes - Podolski’s free header which he put wide, his shot which was saved by Buffon. To score now though would reduce the torture. It was all set up for that classic sting in the tail. Penalties were looming and as every fan knows a penalty shoot-out against Germany equates to a defeat. The editors of La Gazzetta and Tuttosport were putting their finishing touches to their morning headlines: “Heroic Italy fall in penalty shoot-out“, “The curse of the penalties strikes again”.

Then in an instant, everything changed. Andrea Pirlo’s clever reverse pass found Fabio Grosso, whose curling shot beat Jens Lehmann to put the Azzurri ahead - euphoria. “But wait! this is Germany, they might still pull it back!“, cried the fans. The doubt began to set in.

Every great drama needs a hero and one minute later, Gilardino found Del Piero the man who is still blamed for Italy’s defeat to France in Euro 2000. The Juve man took the ball in his stride and shot the ball past Lehmann to become that hero and finally give Italy the victory that their performance deserved. If France win tomorrow, he will have a chance to take his revenge and complete his rennaissance in the biggest final of them all.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 5th, 2006 at 1:05 and is filed under Italy + WorldCup. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.