re: Group D Match 7 England vs Italy BBC/ESPN Official Match Thread

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It beggars belief that England can't break teams down.

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Not "teams." Italy. With a 1 goal lead, in the second half of a World Cup match. Few if any teams in the world could break them down in that scenario.

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Not "teams." Italy. With a 1 goal lead, in the second half of a World Cup match. Few if any teams in the world could break them down in that scenario.

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horseshite. Name the last good team goal England has ever produced. This isn't the vaunted Italian teams of old, it is a team in transition, and England looked befuddled by the mere presence of Italian players in two banks of four. And Pirlo wasn't even defending. He literally let Sterling by him twice. Watch how the basics like their spacing broke down almost immediately, and it was not due to anything Italy was doing. It wasn't like Italy was swarming to the ball. It was an embarrassing attack. Players of that quality should do better.

Once again... I agree. I never said anything about England being an elite team or that those young players will fix their issues or anything like that. All i said was that they have some good up and coming players. Thats all. I even said that England has a lot of overrated players on their roster and people think they are way better than they really are. Still good players though.

And in regards to Italy, it doesnt matter if they are aging or not. They are like the Spurs in the NBA Its just the way they play... they dont beat you with their athleticism and speed or anything like that... its just the system, which is basically Pirlo. And they have Balotelli who is as talented a striker as there is in the world.

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This Italian team is good, but they don't have the vaunted defense of other Italian teams. Hell, on their back line, they were playing with a player who had 2 caps at RB, a player with 3 caps at CB, and an out of position LB who is slow as shite. If there were ever a time to break a team down, it would have been this game.

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Yeah, there's a huge sigh of relief for Italy. The defense isn't nearly as strong as past Italian sides at full strength and that's with De Sciglio healthy, Chiellini at CB and Buffon in goal (or at least Sirigu having had a minute ever with today's lineup).

It was about as much of an emergency patchwork backline as you'll see.

Add to that Pirlo not defending at all due to the heat and humidity and De Rossi being bothered by a foot problem and not really running as much as usual either and looking clumsy by his standards.


That said, this England team is better than the one they sent out in EURO 2012.

I think they get through this group unless Costa Rica pulls a miracle against them.

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Add to that Pirlo not defending at all due to the heat and humidity

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There were times I thought he was herding Sterling. It was amusing to see. To be fair, Gerrard wasn't really defending either, but Pirlo's positional play meant that he helped Italy get out of trouble multiple times. I still think that Italy will go deep this tourney because he is still an amazing DLP, and usually the teams with the best DLP's go deep in the tourney.

England"the motherland of all things soccer" peaked in 1966 LMAO @ the brits...AGAIN !

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There were times I thought he was herding Sterling. It was amusing to see. To be fair, Gerrard wasn't really defending either, but Pirlo's positional play meant that he helped Italy get out of trouble multiple times.

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Pirlo's tracking statistics were pretty interesting. Still managed to cover ~10k m, but he had five fewer sprints than every other Italian outfield player, including subs.

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Ah yeah sorry I forgot to qualify that with subtracting Gerrard. He was awful.

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People really think this? It was terrible tactics. Gerrard was fine. He did exactly what Roy wants him to do which is sit deep and spread the ball wide for crosses, which he did nearly every time.

With that said, they didn't play terribly. Actually it was one of their best performances against a good team thst I can remember. They are just terribly unbalanced.

Roy needs to nut up and sit Welbeck and pair Rooney and Sturridge. If he refuses to do that then Rooney needs to hit the bench. Playing him out of position to cover for Johnson and Baines fricks that team up. But Roy knows Rooney will run his tail off for 90 minutes and that's his justification.

Pair Shrek and Shassmaster, put Sterling as the 10, and overload the midfield. Those 3 should be able to get you out of the groups if you set them up right.

And goddamn implement some kind of pressing system.

I think I celebrated more for Sterlings non-goal than anything in the game I was convinced it was in

Also I don't get how people were berating Hart go yh ball chip/chance it was good goal keeping, he moved him away from goal in a one on one and if he back peddles to the goal there wasn't a defender close so it's just giving him space to move into toward the goal, as a defender gettin on the goal line is defending101 in that situation so hart should/would hE expected one to be there for a chip, which there was


And holy fricking I'm hanging