Re: The Italy Thread - Forza Azzurri! - "Il sogno è appena cominciato"
cassano is definitely a prick, but useless? technique-wise he's on the same bracket of pirlo... and although he's been everything but consistant throughout his carreer, he's been on fire this season at parma.
yes, he's been terrible in his 20 minutes against costarica, but then again, everyone has been terrible that day. besides even immobile has been quite poor in those 15 minutes he was given against england, but i'm sure u won't judge him by that.
keep in mind daniel, i actually agree with u on several aspects. i also would have brought destro to brasil instead of cassano; we already have enough fantasisti with cerci, insigne and candreva, whereas 2 CF (balotelli and immobile) are not enough (who's gonna sit on the bench today? with both mario and ciro on the pitch we don't even have a 3rd cf to put on the bench... that's just wrong imo).
and i also agree with u that immobile should have been our starter.
where i disagree with u is on prandelli. although i disagree with some of his decisions, it's not like he did anything crazy. like i said, i would have called up destro, but we certainly can't say calling up cassano instead of him was a crazy decision. cassano is a great player who's also been on great form this season, so there's nothing really wrong with prandelli's move. i just think destro would have been more useful, but i'm certainly not gonna hold it against prandelli if cassano doesn't perform.
and the same goes for immobile. i'd rather have him as a starter, but it's not like mario is a poor player. he did a great job against england... and although he was pretty wasteful against costarica, again, the entire team failed against costarica, so it's not fair to single him out.
we just had a very bad day against costarica, that's it. candreva couldn't make 1 dribble in the entire match, marchisio looked knackered after 10 minutes of football, motta looked like he was about to pass out any minute. even chiellini didn't look as sharp as usual.
the game against costarica was a physical breakdown, not a tactical failure.
now about today's game. i think it all comes down to the weather and our form. if the heat isn't as unbearable as it was against costarica and our form is acceptable, i think we can handle uruguay. sure they have a good team, but really nothing more than that. they're amazing upfront but their midffield is really nothing special and their defense is pretty much on par with england's.
de rossi is out (which is a major blow) but we're gonna line up a 3 men defense with chiellini, bonucci and barzagli, which should be enough to keep suarez and cavani under control. we're also gonna see balotelli and immobile playing together.... i wonder what chemistry they'll be able to build up in 90 minutes, coz i don't think they've ever played together before (so that should be interesting).
i'm sure uruguay will try to replicate costa rica's formula. they'll be as nasty as they can, they'll put huge pressure on us, and they're gonna give us everything they got for 95 minutes.... but honestly my biggests concerns are the heat and our form, not uruguay.
one last note; i hear that once again we're gonna play upnorth (in the hottest region in brasil) and once again the game will be played at 1pm local time. did fifa learn anything at all from usa '94???
honestly the stupidity of this organization baffles me. logic would demand that the games played in the hottest regions should be played in the evening.... but no, that's not how they operate at fifa. just like 4 days ago in recife, today we will be playing at 1 pm..... whereas brazil played in brasilia yesterday (4000 ft aboove sea level), and the game was played in the evening, with a lovely temperature of 22 celsius degrees.
seriously fuck fifa. people are going crazy coz we'll be going to qatar in 2022.... but honestly i find this situation much more ridiculous. i'd rather play in a dome in qatar with air conditioning and all, than playing in the freaking amazon, or in an almost equatorial region.... at 1pm!!!
