Wrotham Pinot or Lambrusco?
For what it’s worth, I just hope we have a good game. So far three quarter-finals have been decided in regular time with no shootouts. Let’s hope it stays that way.
by Randinho| 87 Comments
This post is in: Sports
Wrotham Pinot or Lambrusco?
For what it’s worth, I just hope we have a good game. So far three quarter-finals have been decided in regular time with no shootouts. Let’s hope it stays that way.
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Chris
I never thought I’d utter these words:
GO ENGLAND!
Leeds man
Balotelli looks ominously calm. Hope Terry oiled his walker.
MikeJ
OK, they’ve got my hopes up, which mean they’re going to be crushed. Nevertheless, go England!
Steeplejack
Let’s see some attacking, instead of the siege mentality of the last two matches.
Mark S.
I think it will be Italy. I just hope it’s a good attacking game and not like that snooze-fest yesterday.
Randinho
Squeaky bum time for England on that di Rossi shot.
Amir Khalid
So far, England have hardly touched the ball at all. Not a good sign for them.
Alison
5 minutes in and already nuts :)
lol chikinburd
England + wine = UNDEFINED
And of all the wines produced in Italy, Lambrusco. They transport that stuff in tankers filled from 80cm pipelines, you know.
Cracking game so far, though.
MikeJ
Flipped over to see the replay of the 3 run homer in the sox game and missed the England shot. Flipped back to footy and missed the solo homer that followed.
Randinho
Glutei cigolanti per l’Italia, but an incredible save by Buffon.
bk
@lol chikinburd: That brings me back 40 years to when I drank Riunite Lambrusco, as a step above Boone’s Farm.
Leeds man
@MikeJ: I’ll see your bad timing, and raise you moving to Toronto the year before Leeds won their first championship, and the year after the Leafs won their last Stanley Cup.
Randinho
@lol chikinburd: Do you know how long it took me to come up with an English wine? Made me miss the cheeses!
Did you know, by the way that olive oil pressed in Spain from olives grown in Spain is often shipped to Italy, bottled there and sold as a product of Italy and it is perfectly legal under EU regulations?
The other day I bought what I thought was an Italian sparkling wine that was on sale and found out when I got home that it was made sparkling in Trier, Germany from wine shipped from Italy.
Amir Khalid
And yes, as soon as I say that England can’t get in the match, they respond by doing precisely that.
smintheus
@Mark S.: Nearly the entire competition has been a snooze fest, though this game is quite a nice change so far.
Leeds man
What’s with Balzaretti running up the sideline, off the pitch? Surely that’s not allowed?
Ronnie P
Still good chances on both ends. I’m a little worried that if there are no goals by, say, minute 75, at least one of the teams will hunker down an wait for pens.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Leeds man:
As long as the ball is in-bounds…
Barney
@Randinho: Breaky Bottom is normally the choice for English wine – when you want a funny name, anyway.
Amir Khalid
No score at halftime. But at least it’s a match.
Leeds man
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): I dunno Max. I played left wing for thirty years, and there were plenty of times when skipping over the touchline and dashing upfield would have been handy. I reckoned that if you leave the pitch of your own volition, you need the ref’s permission to come back on. Does anyone have a definitive ruling?
Amir Khalid
@Leeds man:
I think being temporarily outside the touchlines during play is OK, but leaving the pitch altogether requires the referee’s permission.
Leeds man
@Amir Khalid: Amir, I saw the Italian making significant progress up the sideline, out of bounds, twice! “Temporarily” must have its limits.
Can a wide receiver step out of bounds for twenty yards, as long as he comes back in to make a catch?
MikeJ
@Leeds man: Why would it matter if he were out of bounds? All that matters is where the ball is. You can be out of bounds and control the ball and everything is fine. That being the case, why would it matter if you were out of bounds away from the ball where it doesn’t even affect play?
Amir Khalid
@Leeds man:
Alas, I am not American, and thus not familiar with the rules of the gridiron sport.
As for Balzaretti, the assistant referee can surely see him running outside the touchline. If it’s against the rules he should be warning Balzaretti to get back inside the line, or flagging the foul for the referee’s attention.
Meanwhile, Carroll and Walcott are on, for Welbeck and Milner respectively.
SRW1
Gerrard with cramps after 70 minutes? Didn’t see the first half, but did he run that much?
Amir Khalid
This match needs a goal. So here goes: I see Euro 2012’s first scoreless draw coming up, and penalties in the offing.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Leeds man:
Different sports, different rules.
For instance, in the association game, the ball can contact the touch- or goal- lines and still be in-bounds (or not a goal) unless the entire ball has been determined to have crossed those lines. In the American game, only part of the ball has to touch the sidelines to be out-of-bounds, or the nose of the ball can break the plane of the goal-line to be a touchdown (although a player handling the ball while he is in-bounds can cause the ball to break the plane of the sideline and the ball is still considered to be in-bounds- go figure).
As for your question, if the player was shoved out of bounds by a defender and is judged to attempt to re-enter the playing field to the best of his ability (because if he’s shoved way out of bounds from behind while inside the zone where contact by a defender is still legal, the momentum may keep him from re-entering) then, yes, the catch is legal.
SRW1
This looks like it’s going to extra time. And whoever wins this game has a two days shorter recovery time than Germany anyway.
Chris
Hilarious! The fans trolling the Italians by blaring out the song from “The Italian Job” on their vuvuzelas.
MikeJ
Was just double checking the laws (games have rules, football has *laws*) and pretty much the only mention of a player being out of bounds is for leaving the pitch without permission. Which isn’t the same as running along on the “wrong” wide of the line.
Amir Khalid
We’re in extra time. My powers are misfiring today.
@Chris:
Weren’t those awful vuvuzelas pre-emptively banned worldwide after World Cup 2010?
SRW1
Late and wrong that yellow card.
ETA: Parker off, Roy must be praying that Gerrard will last the 30 minutes.
Leeds man
@SRW1: And whoever wins this game has a two days shorter recovery time than Germany anyway.
Yeah, and if they get past Germany, one less day than Spain as well. Why they couldn’t have two quarter finals per day, I don’t know.
SRW1
@Leeds man:
TV money.
SRW1
Jebus, they’re adding extra time to extra time. As if the players aren’t knackered enough already.
Leeds man
Screw penalty kicks. They should award it to the team with most possession (definitely Italy in this case). It would make for a very interesting last 15 minutes, anyway.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Chris: @Amir Khalid:
I think those are trumpets (or, possibly, cornets) that you’re hearing.
I don’t think FIFA will be banning those any time soon- there’s too much tradition associated with brass instruments (as well as drums) at stadiums around the world.
And it’s not like those instruments can be produced and sold cheaply outside the stadiums. The problem with the vuvuzelas in South Africa was that there were so damned many of them.
lol chikinburd
Eff it, I’m switching over to the Cascadia game.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Offside call nullifies Italian goal.
Man, this game is agonizing.
SRW1
Looks like England have settled for the penalty shoot out.
Amir Khalid
Nocerino heads in from an offside position. Doesn’t count for Italy; England get a lucky escape.
Randinho
I guess I jinxed it in the second paragraph of this post.
Raven
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): A friend of mine went to SA for the World Cup and got a lip infection from blowin that thang!
Amir Khalid
Italy have bossed England around for most of the match and still not managed to score. It will be a tragedy for the Azzurri if they lose on penalties.
bjacques
And the Class 3 wards on the British net held!
Leeds man
@Amir Khalid: I agree.
SRW1
Penalty shoot out:
England (1/6) vs Italy (2/7) at WC or EC games
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
D’OH!
Raven
rut ro
Raven
Punked
Tony J
Aaarrrrggghhh!
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
And a D’OH! right back atchya!
JCJ
ACK!
SRW1
That Pirlo guy is a cool fella.
Amir Khalid
Level at one miss each after three penalties.
Tony J
Balls! It’s all over now.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Oh, no, Cole! Don’t stutter-step!
Raven
Everybody can’t get cute!
Randinho
As an Arsenal fan, I can’t describe how Thrilled I am that Ashley Cole blew his pk.
And that’s it.
The prophet Nostradumbass
What an idiotic way to end a game.
Leeds man
It’s a fair cop. Consigned to the Ashley of history once again.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@SRW1:
Agreed. A fucking chip!
JCJ
@Leeds man:
“Consigned to the Ashley of history”
Nicely done!
Amir Khalid
And it’s over for England: out at the quarterfinal stage on penalties.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Italy deserved the win.
Tony J
Have to say the better team won. We just weren’t at the races for the second half, and if we’d nicked it on penalties the Germans would have stomped all over us.
MikeJ
England lose on penalties? What are the odds?
Oh yeah. Nevermind.
Linnaeus
I wanted England to win this game, but Italy played better, so I don’t feel so bad about them going on.
Now I can cheer for Germany.
Amir Khalid
The team that bossed the match won it on penalties. So justice was served, kind of.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Amir Khalid:
Damn your typo! Now I’m going to have, “It’s pover, it’s POVER,” going through my head all night.
:D
Randinho
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Blame it on television. Back pre-television, they would replay the entire game.
FWIW, England had one shot on target to Italy’s eight, nine shots overall to Italy’s thirty-six. Say what you will, the better team won.
Leeds man
Forza Azzuri! I just love watching Germany get beaten, and I think Spain needs a rest from the spotlight. Portugal, you say? It is to laugh.
Amir Khalid
And my pre-tournament prediction for England comes true: that they would find some way to raise fans’ expectations and then disappoint them. Not, of course, that I’m claiming any great prescience here.
IM
Buffon isn’t a buffon.
Italy deserved the win. That said: boooring.
Randinho
BTW, if you haven’t had your fill of football today, change to ESPN to watch Seattle play Portland in Portland. The next time some cretin says that there’s no audience for the sport in the US grab, them by the scruff of the neck and sit them down to watch the Cascades Derby.
If I closed my eyes I’d swear I was at Old Trafford, Anfield, the Nou Camp or La Bombonera.
Ronnie P
The crowd in Portland will be much better than in Kiev an there will be more goals and scoring chances. The biggest weakness of MLS is defending.
Randinho
Did Pirlo get his inspiration here?
MikeJ
@Randinho: Go to any Sounders game. There’s always a good crowd, they know football, and they yell and sing. Seattle has the best fans in the MLS.
Randinho
@MikeJ: I’ve seen the same thing at both Sounders and Timbers games.
Tony J
So what went wrong?
Short(ish) answer:
Rooney just wasn’t match-fit. Shouldn’t have started the game in the first place, and I’m still astonished Woy didn’t sub him for Defoe when it was obvious to everyone else that his legs had gone, which was roughly around the 20 minute mark of the previous match. A fit striker capable of running into space and attacking the ball might have been an advantage to us, but what do I know?
Young has been badly shown up as ‘not good enough at this level’ and again, it’s baffling that he wasn’t one of the players taken off. Best players were Gerrard, Terry, Cole (penalty spunk aside), Johnson and Carroll (and no, I can’t believe I’m writing that sentence either). Welbeck was Man United’s best representative, and he can feel very hard done by for being subbed instead of Rooney.
Simply put, when you – know – going into the game that keeping Pirlo from bossing the play from midfield is Mission 1 to 10 of your strategy, what you – don’t – do is leave him unmarked and free to amble across the half-way line for virtually the whole game. Maybe it was something to do with the fact that Rooney had the job of denying him space and clearly wasn’t up to it. Whatever, the end result was that we didn’t have the ball, and when we – did – get it, there was nowhere for it to go but back into an already congested England half.
So, we deserved to lose because half of our squad just didn’t play well, and more than half of theirs did. Italy should enjoy the justice of their penalty shoot-out victory, because there’s no way in hell that they’re ever getting past Germany.
Germany vs Spain in the Final, Germany win 3-2 after a bad tempered game.
handsmile
Pity the poor souls for whom this was an introduction to international football. A match to persuade spectators of the tension, excitement and artistry of golf, competitive fly-fishing and croquet. A diabolical match; on quick review, maybe the worst I’ve seen at this level of competition.
To be sure, both teams deployed unorthodox tactics for a quarter-final: Italy attempted to defeat England by having it collapse in boredom. The English game plan appeared to be inducing the Azzuri to collapse in laughter at the ineptitude of their opponents.
With both squads culpable of 120 minutes of stupefying performance, had England in fact won this match, I believe the result would have fallen under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
I’ve not yet seen comprehensive match stats, but I suspect Andrea Pirlo himself was on the ball longer than the entire English team. Alessandro Diamanti, whose penalty kick mercifully ended this debacle, was an energetic substitute for Antonio Cassano who’s had a very fine (and literally heartfelt) tournament. Balotelli was shambolic but always worrisome for EPL players who know his potential; coach Cesare Prandelli showed some guts by starting him. I have immense respect for Gianluigi Buffon, a thorough class act in this sport and someone whose visage should provide him with a lucrative second career in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie franchise.
England demonstrated convincingly why so few observers saw them advancing past the group stages. Joe Hart and Jolean Lescott certainly earned their pay today, as did Ashley Young who for much of the second half and extra time periods appeared to be England’s left fullback. The once-malighed Andrew Carroll was an industrious figure upon his substitution, his efforts on view from box-to-box. And Theo Walcott, subbed on for his “blistering pace,” displayed all the hard work and guile that Arsenal fans know so well.,
Roy Hodgson deserves a full measure of credit for whatever roar he was able to coax from these toothless Lions at Euro2012. That said, however, or maybe as evidence, Jordan Henderson rather than Oxlade-Chamberlain as your final substitute when needing a goal?
‘arry Redknapp is looking for a job, I hear.
Finally, @Randinho: (#61)
Yeah, oh yeah. No one more deserving….
handsmile
@Tony J:
It would seem we were simultaneously writing our longish (by thread standards) assessments of a game that gives the lie to its description as “beautiful.”
Reading your comments, I do agree on Glen Johnson whose defensive performance throughout today’s match surpassed his reputation and who, on offense, appeared to have been ignored by Italy’s pre-match scouts for all the proverbial “acres of space” he was afforded in the first half.
I thought Danny Welbeck had an excellent tournament and should be one of England’s key players in World Cup 2014 qualifications.
And you, me, and the entire football world that does not reside in Portugal seem pretty damned certain about the finalists. As for the result, well, perhaps we’ll exchange comments later. Condolences about today’s result, but you seem stoic.
Leeds man
@Tony J: Rooney just wasn’t match-fit.
You give the Italians too little credit. Even if he were fit, he would have got no service. The Italians shut down any English possession in the middle third (often England’s own third as well), and stifled anything like an English attack with a couple of early exceptions.
The English back four were superb, but Italy were unlucky not to score. I think they’ll give Germany a run for the money.
erik g
@Randinho:
Yep, exactly ‘cashing out’. And I though the other Ashley would to a better job of getting the ref to give some cards out – a game better officiated (first card wasn’t until the 82nd minute!) then the Spain-France game (I though the official was going to give a card to Ribéry when he collided with Cabayé (or was Reveillere – maybe a card for each;) in the second half.)
I did think this was a little more lively than the Spain-France game. So now most of Arsenal will be good and rested for the next season, and Podolski can start striking fear in EPL right-backs. I does seem teams with an Arsenal player showed some spark but it may have not been enough for the team itself – the Czech seemed lost without Rosicky in the middle. Now would England have had a more solid middle if Wilshere were healthy?
As for noise, I just kept hearing ‘7-Nation Army’…and in the MLS West also give props to the San Jose Ultras who are usually the loudest fans at Galaxy games (can’t wait for the Galaxy coming to ‘little’ Buck Shaw in October).
Leeds man
@erik g: Now would England have had a more solid middle if Wilshere were healthy?
I suspect they would just have had a very frustrated Wilshere.