Spooky but Toothless: Spain draw with Italy

Italy 1 Spain 1

This was the group game I was most looking forward to. Pre tournament build up spoke of an Italian resurgence on the back of yet another major SeriaA scandal, consistent with their triumphs in 1982 and 2006. The build up also revealed a tiki-taka backlash among neutral fans, many of whom have grown bored with Spain and Barcelona’s dominance through endless patient passes, and are willing Drogba-like wrecking balls to bring down Spain’s carefully assembled jenga tower.    

The 1st Marquis of Del Bosque

Italy played an un-Italian back three, boasting flying wingbacks (to take advantage of the selection of Napoli’s wingback Maggio). Spain went into the game with a remarkable Four-Six…Zero formation.

Lacking David Villa due to a broken leg, and faced with the prospect of fielding Fernando Torres as the lone striker, Spanish coach Del Bosque had obviously hurled his subbuteo players at the wall in despair.

Del Bosque (now the 1st Marquis of Del Bosque) opted for the spooky “false number nine” or “ghost nine” trick. A forward player who isn’t really there. Theory goes that rather than plonking an iron skulled Paul Mariner figure on the board to lead the line, you play without a striker and pack your team with skipping Lionel Messi types who drag defenders around on a leash, creating gaps, and making the entire offensive unit impossible to mark. In practice, without Lionel Messi himself in your ranks, this isn’t likely to work. And it didn’t.    

For the first half, the Italians had the measure of Spain. Xavi and Alonso were distracted, playing scissor-paper-stones with Andrea Pirlo in the middle of the park, while dominant Daniele De Rossi, in an unfamiliar defensive role, calmly mopped up any mess created by Iniesta and co.     

Cassano before his stroke

Italy were dangerous in attack. The Premier League’s favourite goofball Mario Balotelli was accompanied by Antonio Cassano, a fireball of crazy that burns so fiercely Fabio Copello coined the term Cassanata to describe his erratic egomania, and whose career reached such a ref-abusing, shirt-hurling, coach-eyeballing climax that he had a stroke in November 2011, forcing him out of the game for six months.

Rather than peck at each other like Siamese fighting fish, the Odd Couple dovetailed well, and Balotelli’s threat was growing until he pondered too long in a one-on-one with Casillas early in the second half and was hooked off immediately afterwards by coach Cesare Prandelli. Mario was replaced by the evergreen Di Natale who pounced on a pass from the otherwise occupied Pirlo to open the scoring. 

Spain’s “false nine” fling did reap some dividends when Cesc Fabregas turned in a swift equalizer, but Del Bosque’s patience had run out. After Fabregas’s goal,  he changed the system from “false number nine” to “crap number nine” with the introduction of Torres.

The change actually galvanised Spain’s midfield masses who began unleashing Torres at will to run at the Italian goal. But the Chelsea player looked no less like a showhorse on ice than he had all season, and instead of taking his chances and scoring a winner, he was left blushing and chasing down whoever had stolen the ball off him that time. 


Croatia 3 Ireland 1


In other news, Ireland got hammered by a superior Croatia side. The manner of defeat was a surprise, given Ireland's excellent defensive record going into the tournament. With Italy and Spain to come, the defeat surely means curtains for the Irish. The sight of Wolves and Leicester journeymen needing to score against the likes of Ramos, Pique, De Rossi and Buffon can only be watched through trembling fingers.