This result should put beyond doubt that France was the better team in the World Cup too. It also proves that French soccer is more than Zidane and his headbutt. Italy has their work cut out, looks like new coach Roberto Donadoni has a lot of talking to do with his boys.
6 comments on “Video: France 3 Italy 1, Les Bleus over the Azzurris”
Exactly! I’m sick of everyone dissing the French team saying they were “lucky” to reach the final. Let’s see if the historical pattern holds: winners of world cups and euro cups have a hard time staying on top. Italy won the wc in ’82, didn’t qualify for euro ’84 (France won that one). Czechoslavakia won euro ’76, didn’t qualify for wc ’74 or ’78. Only Germany and France have managed the staying power to win both cups consecutively, and even they eventually declined too.
This performance has absolutly nothing to do with the world cup, and to say that France was the better team is ridiculous.
Stop the Italia bashing, its f****ng stupid
Nick
What did you see that I and Sandrahn saw differently?
Even Donadoni acknowledged that France was the better team yesterday.
http://www.goal.com/en/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=122915
and france win on a headbutt .. Not the famous Zidane’s headbutt but with govou’s headbutt 😉
I suppose it depends what you define as “better”. I’m sure that every Italian who watched the World Cup final saw Italy as the better team and I’m sure the same is true for the French view of the French team. From a neutral observer standpoint, I think it’s important to say that the question you are debating is who was more effective. That’s different. The best team doesn’t always win (though usually). Anyone who says France isn’t good is an idiot, but to say they were the better team in the WC final is completely irrelevant since, well, they lost. They won this time around and certainly looked better, but again, irrelevant. (Wasn’t England the better team when they lost to Portugal? What about the Czech Republic losing to Ghana?)
The point is, I think, that beauty is what we look for in “good” soccer — control, pace, style, etc — and on any given day different teams have different abilities. Is Spain really worse than Northern Ireland? Not a chance in hell.
France is solid, so is Italy. They’ll play again and we’ll see what happens when they do. Remember, Totti was not present for this game and no one has yet mentioned that Donadoni brings a new system to a group quite used to the old Lippi way of life.
And just to answer my first question: “better” is defined in my book as more enjoyable to watch. That was Italy in the World Cup, hands down.
Soccerspot,
I agree with your definition of better being the team that plays more enjoyable soccer. That is why I find it contradictory when you say that was what Italy did in the World Cup finals. They did not.
If you are talking about the Italy that took apart the Germans, in the semi-finals, then you have a point. The Italians played incandescent football. I loved Grosso’s goal. It would have made Rossi proud.
But the Italy that showed up for the final played sluggishly in the first half. France looked a lot crisper with their passing. Admittedly, it was not really a high quality match but by no stretch of the imagination could you say that the Italians played more enjoyable football that day. Claude Makelele’s play took apart Pirlo, who was a non- factor, throughout the match. Gattuso was terrible. And so was Perotta. On the other hand Malouda had one of his best games.
As for Ghana, I think they played far better (using the criterion of enjoyable) even when they lost against Brazil. They were the ones that played a pretty game of passing except when it came to scoring. That was when Appiah and Muntari would just blast the ball over. Brazil won in the most awful way. And I dare say, Ghana was the better team when they beat the Czech Republic. Do you rememeber Pavel Nedved trying to do everything by himself? He had some support in Karel Poborsky, till he ran out of gas.
In fact, I would say, Ghana’s team was amongst the few teams that played really enjoyable football. The other team was Germany. Till they met Italy.
England played better than Portugal? I don’t think so. If you are talking about Aaron Lennon’s introduction in the last 10 minutes, then yes. That was the first time, that England played truly enjoyable and ‘better’ football than Portugal. The overall game was quite dismal at both ends.
I agree with you but I think you have chosen the wrong teams to support your definition.