?️ #Wembley Stadium, #London
⚽️ Round of 16
⏱ 21:00 CEST#Azzurri #VivoAzzurro #ITAAUT #ITA pic.twitter.com/wfg2OfssSO— Italy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@azzurri) June 26, 2021
?? Congratulations, Austria! Into the knockout stages at a EURO for the first time in their history ?#EURO2020 pic.twitter.com/9qICdIo3bY
— UEFA EURO 2020 (@EURO2020) June 21, 2021
WaterGirl
Next soccer thread now open for business.
eclare
Perfect WG!
WaterGirl
@eclare:
Anne Laurie made the actual threads, just keeping an eye on them while she sleeps. :-)
cope
@WaterGirl: She sleeps?
WaterGirl
@cope: Shit! I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone!
otmar
Well, the mood here in Austria is basically: we got what we hoped to achieve. Only the hard core optimists hope that we beat Italy.
So what we’re actually hoping for is a good game. Give the Italians a hard time.
eclare
Italy won the national anthem.
Tony Jay
Italy have to be big favourites here, but since the teams are playing in old Arsenal and Everton strips from the early 2000s I’m going to have to suspect that Austria can nick this if (and it’s a Godzilla’s left bollock sized ‘if’) they can frustrate Italy and take one of their chances.
eclare
@Tony Jay: You seem to be right. Italy has missed so much.
Tony Jay
Austria 1-0 Italy
Did I call it or did I call it
ooooh, offside?
yup, offside.
There’s your warning Italy.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
Austria is playing Sweden’s game. Stay super organized defensively and let Italy hold the ball a lot but don’t give any real quality scoring chances, then counter attack with speed when the opportunity presents itself.
billcinsd
Arnautovich finally gets a shot right but may have been offside and he has no Kosovars to abuse. It is ruled offside
WeimarGerman
Seems this other Bundesliga team is doing much better than expected. Italy showing that 13 clean sheets vs mostly 2nd rate teams doesnt mean much.
Morzer
@cope: In a coffin
billcinsd
and it’s extra time
Morzer
After this game, Italy might want to consider making “Everyone will sleep” their unofficial theme song. Whatever happens in extra time, they’ve been tediously pedestrian today.
cope
@Morzer: Yeah, seems the “new” Italy missed the game bus.
Tony Jay
That’s the first time Austria have failed to block properly and Italy strike.
1-0
cope
Fuck, a beautiful goal, though.
Morzer
@cope:
If the brave new Italy somehow manage to go out at this stage, I for one am going to be greatly embarrassed that I started to think of them as the inevitable champions
By which I of course now mean (goal!) that their victory was inevitable despite Austria’s scrappy little team delaying the march of the mighty, nay, venti, Italia to glory.
Morzer
The hills are alive with the sound of
“Fuck those pasta-gobbling, referee-purchasing scum!” and
“Our goal was never offside!”
Good goal though.
Tony Jay
@Morzer:
Italy can’t win the tournament. No one has ever managed a Eurovision Song Contest/European Championship Double before, it’s simply too big an ask.
Morzer
@Tony Jay: Maybe this is the year that Italy make destiny an offer it cannot refuse.
Morzer
Joking aside, the other teams in the tournament are going to look at this display by Italy and think that they are ripe for the taking. Which is not something anyone thought before this game.
Tony Jay
And that will be that.
2-0
Morzer
@Tony Jay: That’s a scoreline that flatters Italy so excessively that even Silvio Berlusconi would be embarrassed.
Tony Jay
@Morzer:
I’ll believe that if they turn up for the final in glam-rock fringed leather catsuits, six-inch stacks and full make-up.
If they’re playing us in the Final they could probably do that and still win.
ETA – Yeah, Austria deserve more out of this game but Italy have turned it on just in time. The Austrians needed to finish this in normal time, they didn’t, so it’s the 1860s all over again.
Morzer
@Tony Jay:
“glam-rock fringed leather catsuits, six-inch stacks and full make-up”
Don’t give Boris Trump ideas!
cope
I generally pull for the underdog in games I don’t have an actual favorite in so today, Austria. Who knows, maybe down the road, Azure will be the underdog and I’ll be rooting them on.
Tony Jay
@Morzer:
He only does dress-up on Fridays, like some horrid mirror-universe Mr Benn.
Morzer
@Tony Jay:
I thought that was Jeremy Corbyn’s manifest destiny.
Morzer
@cope: I am secretly hoping for Ukraine to gallop to glory, largely because they are underdogs, but also because it would enrage Putin and Trump in all sorts of delicious ways.
Anyway
Why is Italy wearing blue? Why not white or green?
WeimarGerman
Game on! Austria end the Italian shut out streak.
Morzer
Edelweiss! Edelweiss! The Habsburg Empire Strikes Back! Now those Mafia Ewoks will pay for their crimes!
Or something like that.
Tony Jay
@Morzer:
No, the mirror-universe Corbyn was the one the British Press and half of the Parliamentary Labour Party presented to the public in order to clear Johnson’s path to electoral victory. We’re still paying for that monumental act of deceit and will be for a loooonnnng time.
But let’s table that, because Austria just fucking scored!!!!
Morzer
@Anyway: Blue is their traditional color. That’s why they are the Azzurri. Blue was the color of the old Italian royal family – the House of Savoy.
Anyway
@Morzer:
Didn’t know that about Italy. I thought France was Les bleus
Morzer
@Anyway: Both France and Italy are the Blues, which must make for interesting family parties on the border.
Tony Jay
Well well well. That will give the Portuguese or the Belgians a lot to chew over. If Austria had taken their chances in the second half of extra-time this would have gone to penalties. Can’t see either of Italy’s next opponents being that defensively solid, but they’ve seen that Italy’s back line can be well and truly got at and both of them have goalscorers who can and will punish them.
Roll on the Quarters.
Morzer
Well, that’s that. A brave performance by Austria and Italy looked extremely unimpressive overall. Could be the air is leaking out of the blue balloon.
polyorchnid octopunch
Just gotta say that last tweet from the UEFA folks is kind of an epic troll of a <koff koff a-HEM> certain kind of Austrian.
Thor Heyerdahl
@polyorchnid octopunch: of the failed housepainter type…
Morzer
@Thor Heyerdahl: Terrific dancer, though.