Live, In Play, In Game Football Discussion Megathread

**CritchSmile** · (Edited 11-14-2017, 12:12 PM by CritchSmile.)

1998 - Baggio, Del Piero, Vieri, Inzaghi

Crowe

Imagine being Filippo Inzaghi and knowing you are the 4th best striker in your football team. Unreal.

Edit: Zola didn't even make the squad. Dat quality. Dismay

Herman Boyce · 11-14-2017, 12:15 PM

Not even a spot for Zola in that squad either who was playing brilliantly at Chelsea Wow

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**CritchSmile** · 11-14-2017, 12:18 PM

(11-14-2017, 12:15 PM)Bert Le Bowski Wrote: Not even a spot for Zola in that squad either who was playing brilliantly at Chelsea

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Ravanelli too. Warnock

Herman Boyce · (Edited 11-14-2017, 12:22 PM by Herman Boyce.)

Just saw your edit Putitthere

The 2002 bunch were quality too. Montella was a brilliant player. I think they had a real chance if not for that South Korea game.

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~~shaun.lawson~~ · (Edited 11-14-2017, 12:29 PM by shaun.lawson.)

(11-14-2017, 12:08 PM)Gregory Wrote: 1998 - Baggio, Del Piero, Vieri, Inzaghi

Imagine being Filippo Inzaghi and knowing you are the 4th best striker in your football team. Unreal.

Edit: Zola didn't even make the squad. Dat quality.

Yet in 1998, they were crap. Laugh

Genuinely. Cesare Maldini was slaughtered back home for their craven approach. Incredible waste of talent. And yep: Zola, who pissed all over England at Wembley, didn't even make the squad.

~~shaun.lawson~~ · (Edited 11-14-2017, 01:10 PM by shaun.lawson.)

Italy in my major tournament-watching lifetime

1986: Ageing Champions buried by fabulous French.

1988: Test run for Italia 90; a very young side reaches the semis, with Vialli looking like their talisman for the World Cup.

1990: Should've won it. Would've done had it not been for a series of idiotic decisions by Vicini, culminating in him leaving Baggio out for the semi-final and keeping faith with the woefully out of form Vialli; and not bringing Ancelotti into midfield when Argentina started to gain control. Maybe the most beautiful, luxurious midfield I've ever seen in any international side.

1992: Hangover from World Cup = DNQ.

1994: With Italy reduced to 10 men and in dire trouble v Norway, Sacchi takes Baggio off. Baggio says to his teammate as he's walking off: "He's mad!" Somehow the Azzurri survive, repeat the same trick v Nigeria (who I think would've reached the final had they hung on), and end up heartbreakingly close... but they didn't deserve to win it. Brazil did.

1996: Sacchi's luck runs out as his arrogance ruins the chances of a squad which should, I've always believed, have won the whole thing. In Italy, a columnist describes their first round exit as "the perfect footballing crime". Arrigo gets the Sacchi.

1998: Weird. Look at the talent they had at the time - yet they were horrendously defensive and sterile. England outplayed them in Rome; and in France, they crawled to a quarter-final exit v the hosts. Yet had they won the shootout, they'd almost certainly have won a fourth world title.

2000: Bizarrely low expectations going in lead to, in typical Italian style, a tremendous showing. The manner of their final defeat was cruel, but deserved: France were one of the outstanding international sides ever. Afterwards, Berlusconi absurdly blames Zoff, so off rides chain-smoking Dino into the sun.

2002: Totally fucked by a conspiracy which began in the group stages, when they had four goals wrongly disallowed. But they were still too defensive ("Italy lost because they will not learn!"), and wouldn't have won the whole thing even without the refereeing debacle.

2004: Unlucky again (the head to head format is a nonsense) - but their caginess and passivity maybe got what it deserved. Exit Trap.

2006: One of the world's all-time great coaches gets Italy to play positively, redeem their country in the wake of Calciopoli, and they are fully deserving World Champions: coming through the greatest World Cup match this century in the semis. FIFA, Blatter, and interminably whining Aussies who don't even understand the laws of the game, go fuck yourselves.

2008: See 1998. In decline, generally rubbish... yet had they won the quarter-final shootout v Spain, again, they'd probably have won the tournament.

2010: Lippi follows the time-honoured route of turning into a total fucking idiot after scaling the peaks, meaning his geriatric joke of a squad is humiliated.

2012: The most relentlessly positive Italy side I've ever seen, under a manager I think they could do an awful lot worse than bringing back now. Loved Prandelli, loved that team, loved what Balotelli did to Germany... but against Spain, they overreached themselves.

2014: The draw was designed to destroy them. And it did. Thanks in no small part to the FIGC: who comically based the team in Rio because, reportedly, the officials' wives wanted to go shopping. Warnock

This left them with the schedule from hell - so naturally, they were out on their feet come the last group game. Prandelli should never have resigned afterwards; it wasn't his fault at all.

2016: Azzurri now in trouble. Conte does an absolutely brilliant job in taking them past Spain and going toe-to-toe with Germany. But yawning cracks are being papered over.

2018: A sad, deserved humiliation. Whither Italy now? Vlad Shrug