Originally posted by dom9
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They lost because they set themselves up for defeat. The problem may have been in the middle of the park, but it was caused by the wide fullbacks of Italy. Abate and Balzaretti played parallel alongside pirlo and de rossi allowing montolivo and marchisio to come into their more familar central roles and sit behind stevie g and parker effectively creating a 4 on 2 situation for most of the game in the centre of the park.
Had England not been so defensive minded the likes of walcott and young could have pushed higher and forced balzaretti and abate back into their traditional roles hence stretching the 4 more central minded italian players, marchisio and montolivo are not wingers (this is why the walcott sub actually made sense to me, however it obvs was not made for this reason and walcott became as defensively minded as milner had been). this would have also taken the pressure off gerrard and parker. i only counted england attacking on the counter with 4 players twice, thats the problem. the compare this performance at the euros to the how the dutch played spain in south africa is also ludacris imo, when other teams (ironically often Italy) set up to play counter attack they support their front men on the break, England didn't do this at the Euros, Holland did in S.A, theres a difference between playing counter attacking football and playing the **** Hodgson likes.
To say if Capello had stayed England would not have made it out of the group is also stupid, it obviously can't be proved any which way, but i think that his style would have forced Italy to approach the game differently, probably more so in their natural counter attacking way and thus England would have had more of an even chance unlike the 37% or whatever it was possesion.
Italy were allowed to play 2 men at the back for the majority of the game, thats embaressing because despite what the press have been saying, England individually are just as good as that Italian team, in the past the problem has been a team of individuals, now they're a team but they're one that is led out with no desire to 'play' the game.
) is appallingly **** by international standards. In fact, I'm struggling to think of another team in the entire tournament with a poorer attacking four.
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