Italy scores a goal after being boring for 35 minutes. After several good tries England casually scores one two minutes later to equalize it.

Fuck you Pirlo!

oh, i'm seeing a BEAUTIFUL game here-- starts measured, picks up gradually, by the end of the first half it's already a screamer.

what genius pirlo letting that ball go to marchisio.

what a great pass from rooney to sturridge, and what a great game is sturridge having so far.

what an incredible play by supermario near the end, and what a great save by… who saved it? right on the line!

this is awesome.

sirigu pretty great on the saves but i think gigi's absence is leaving italy's defense slightly disorganized.

=====

ETA: what a game!

don't feel bad, ingleses! you played a great game. much respect.

& i didn't like the way italy fell back the last 20 minutes but they managed as usual. damn, they are such a team. i get a little tear-eyed watching them.

They did, during the first half I wasn't sure if it was England playing that well or Italy playing that bad to let England in it. In the second half when the Italy that tears you up showed up it became clear that England really was just playing a great game.




By the way, like my mang man Pablo Ramirez from Univision says, "There is no crying in soccer my friend."

Yeah, great game. After watching Uruguay and Costa Rica earlier I'm actually not that bothered about the loss. To qualify we need to beat both of them and I've no reason to think we can't. Uruguay were a massive disappointment, and even if Suarez plays he won't be fully match fit. And we have to believe we can beat Costa Rica.

But yeah, tonight maybe lacked the sheer amazement of the Holland-Spain game but it felt more exciting and in a way credible. Italy did edge it on quality. Chiellini was fantastic at the back for them, and I was impressed with Varatti(sp?). But I also thought Sterling was great for England and Sturridge definitely looks like there's more goals in him. Still not sure about Rooney though. But I said at the beginning that whatever happens results wise, I can't see England embarrassing themselves this tournament.

Bring on Uruguay, with their injured superstars and their bad tempers.

Yup


Indeed.


If England plays the kind of disciplined and coordinated defense they played today while taking advantage of all shot opportunities like they did. England had the ball about 50% of the time, they took 18 shots, 8 on goal, and really a few were great looks but just booted it too hard..

Careful though, like !@#$%! mentioned, Costa Rica are no saints..

i think you guys will make it out of the group easily--and deservedly.

as a neutral party, i wasn't as excited with this as yesterday's great match. but still i thought it was really beautiful.

btw, sturridge was making chiellini suffer. especially in the first half (2nd half italy's defense came back more organized)

and i also think it was chiellini's knee that sent sturridge's hamstring over the edge (he was limping, yeah?)-- that should have been a yellow maybe but then the foul against balotelli should have been one too. so the ref was equally lenient and fair. refreshing!

sterling had a great night too. and he's only 19? STAR.

rooney didn't have such a great night but that goal was half his. such a well-placed ball.

it was great to watch two schools of football battle it out so distinctly. of course you know i love italy's style, especially under prandelli, but england kept trying and made it interesting and it was great.

in the end i think the thing was that pirlo > gerrard. (yes, i exaggerate, but there's something to it). and how brilliant is balotelli when he's not acting like a lunatic? he's extremely smart.

damn, this was so worth the wait.

Agreed, I think when Sturridge was subbed out it changed the entire flow of the game. It looked like after that hard foul he wasn't the same, hopefully he didn't tweak anything in that knee, he took a hard hit there. In basketball that kind of hit could do you in and he was half limping on it when he walked off the pitch.

I been waiting for this Ivory Coast-Japan game ALL FUCKING DAY

Send that in an email to West Ham, address it to Sam Allardyce. He'll read it and have you headhunted as his personal guru.



"Some fucker finally gets me!"

That goal by Honda was one of the best I've seen in this cup, it wasn't technically brilliant, but it had the force and having been built on that recklessly fast first 15 minutes it was an exclamation point. Japan matches Ivory Coast's athleticism with IQ and precision bursts of speed.

and did I just see some fucking voodoon shit with a dried snakes head thrown on the fucking pitch??? Only in Brazil yo

I circled the Ivory Coast-Japan game on my calendar last weekend, I was not disappointed. I think this was the best game second only to the Netherlands beat down on Spain, but since Japan was still in it to the end I rank it better since Spain didn't stand a chance.

Gerrard only really became a deep-lying playmaker once he became too old for his traditional box-to-box role. He's very good there but it's not natural to him the way it is for Pirlo, who seems almost uniquely born for the job.

But yeah, I loved the two opposing schools thing too. These aren't two great sides but they're very capable ones, with good managers and a nice mix of experience and youth. Holland-Spain was something epic, a game people will talk about for years. That won't happen with the Italy-England game but I somehow thought it was the more all-round satisfying game to watch. Nothing spectacular, no great falls from grace or moments of redemption, no particular wow moments, just a really good evenly matched game of football.

Originally Posted by demonrail666
I know this was meant for Suchfriends but I agree, any claims that Spain are over are talking bollocks. This particular side may be starting to show its age but the depth of young talent in Spain is ridiculous. I just see this as a bit of a transition for them.

In terms of the WC I think a lot will depend on if Brazil can continue to evolve and what Germany look like. I also think Argentina could have a decent shout, but either way, even this current Spain will be contenders, for sure.


I'll admit though that I did think the current lineup would be stronger than it maybe is. But a bad night against Holland hasn't suddenly turned the likes of Casillas and Ramos into bad players. Collapses like that happen. Real won this year's CL with many of the same players that Dortmund destroyed the year before. Spain may not be as good as they were but they're far from finished. They may not win the WC this time, or even qualify out of their group, but find me a manager who'd want to face even this Spain side and you'll have found me an idiot.

Yeah, fantastic goal. Although fave so far for me is Van Persie's header.

The god of football commentary in Australia is Les Murray..


Here he lends his considerable pronunciation talents to a local euro-disco tribute to Zinedine Zidine

Not sure what I thought of the game overall but Switzerlands second goal was fantastic.

damn! nice finish by switzerland! and well-deserved because their second goal was unfairly disallowed.

otherwise, the game didn't exactly wake me up this morning-- lots of back & forth but no brilliance on either side.

YES! Rodriquez gets an assist for the second Swiss goal in the dying seconds. Adds a few more points for my fantasy football team.

As for last night's game. Gutting, just gutting. I don't know why I let myself get drawn into it.

-Pirlo has eyes on the back of his pissing head

-It was weird to see Rooney shifted over to the left, and also telling that his one big chance to score was when he shifted over to the center.

-The bar (a real chav bar basically) went NUTS thinking Sterling had scored on that first chance 3 minutes in. WOOSH went a pint onto the (MASSIVE) projection screen, pints everywhere, people hugging, then one by one people realised it hadn't gone in. The look of sheer disappointment (mine included) was incredible.

All in all England played the tactics Italy wanted us too. Italy defended heavily and they waited to grab their chances when they came. Fair play to 'em.

^^ speaking of fantasy teams i had to put up a honduran defender after abate didn't play yesterday-- damn you, zonal marking! ha ha ha. eh!

--

i hope france plays well this year. fingers crossed!

Pogba looks decent

honduras game plan: park the bus, foul, roll on the floor.

Haven't really seen Griezmann before but he also look very good. France should really get at least another couple in the second half.

he's been great a real socieledad for the past few years. i remember his back breaking goal against barca

I FUCKING LOVE THE WORLD CUP. Fact.

No love for the Ivory Coast-Japan game?? USA-Ghana tomorrow is huge. The one thing USMNT gets plenty of is attention, necessarily warranted or not. I'm betting this will be one of the most scrutinized opening matches of the Group stage.

argentina pretty fucked as a team. several times already you have attackers standing around looking at messi and clueless as to what is going to happen. initial bad luck aside, bosnia is playing as much more of a team-- the only thing argentina has going for them is individual talent, but they are as uncoordinated as you can get.


i watched most of it. while well contested, it wasn't in any way great.

I was a bit burnt out for the Japan Ivory Coast game. I watched it but found it hard to get fully into. First time I've watched four games in a day. Two is perfect, three is doable but four was pushing it. I mainly remember Honda's goal and Ivory Coast only really doing anything once Drogba came on.

Anyway, seen nothing from Argentina so far.

Completely agree. Massively disappointing. The goalkeeper's probably their best player so far.

they improved going back to 4 defenders vs. the lone bosnian attacker but still not that great. not sure what's their completed pass stat but can't be that high.

compare to how italians know where each teammate stands (with the culmination of pirlo letting that ball go unseen to marchisio) and you'll see argentina has quite an uphill road to the championship.

nice goal by messi though.

so far i'm getting the feeling that this cup might go, contrary to geographic tradition, to a european team; and my favorites so far are italy and OF COURSE the amazing netherlands. but there's still a long way to go and a lot to see, so i'm not putting money down anywhere.

Argentina had a 15-20 minute spell when they looked really strong and Messi's goal was lovely, but I feel the own goal ruined it for Bosnia. Had they been going into the second half at 0-0 they'd have likely started to close up and go for a point but they had to chase and as Argentina got stronger they found more space.

In the US, quite possibly

Maybe I'm just biased, Ivory Coast plays the kind of swarming, athletic, pressure defense that I like, and they really could have scored 4-1 if they weren't booting it so damned hard. Props to Japan, they played tough and tried to equalize Ivory Coast's strength with some dirty plays but I won't hold it against them, Ivory Coast are clearly big enough to hang with that. It was a great game, FAST paced, and a lot of shooting, not exactly a lot of stylistic ball movement, but I'm from CONCACAF so you know we like defense over sophisticated offense, and really, that is Ivory Coast's game plan..

Will you stop banging on abut that bloody game!

Great matches to watch! Had a blast catching most of them. Love the Mundial!

Seeing spain get their asses handed to them was awesome.

how wasted exactly did your dutch friend get after that match? i mean, if it could be somehow established… say, was he still walking on 2 legs by the time the new day arrived?

ps- read that pep is going to put lahm as a midfielder. i mean jogi boogers, in imitation of peppers. fuckit, if it doesn't work, i will put a pitchfork up his ass. well, only in my imagination.

obviously i don't trust the fucker which is why i have no german players in my fantasy team. sad.