Why the hell do people keep saying Italy is boring and has no offense???

[babak_australia]

I think you guys are in denial of a true football powerhouse
YOU dont WIN 4 world cups for nothing.
There are only 7 teams in the whole world that have won it and two of them only once AT HOME!
So excuses are for losers. Italy came a long way and had many hearbreaks to get to this championship

Bro are u reading everyone elses posts?? No one said Italy is shit and yes they are a powerhouse the only thing ppl are saying is that they are a boring team to watch. No one likes a team that sits back and defends and then counters. I know u r going to say they dont and they scored heaps of goals but i am not talking about one or two games i am talking about the last 10-15 years, and from wat i hear longer they were very much the same b4 then.

LEt me just say something for you man. Italy is a great team and deserve their world cups, no one is denying that but i guess u have to be a neutral and not a fan of Italy to understand that they are NOT an entertaining team.

[EKBATAN]

Bro are u reading everyone elses posts?? No one said Italy is shit and yes they are a powerhouse the only thing ppl are saying is that they are a boring team to watch. No one likes a team that sits back and defends and then counters. I know u r going to say they dont and they scored heaps of goals but i am not talking about one or two games i am talking about the last 10-15 years, and from wat i hear longer they were very much the same b4 then.
LEt me just say something for you man. Italy is a great team and deserve their world cups, no one is denying that but i guess u have to be a neutral and not a fan of Italy to understand that they are NOT an entertaining team.

Well entertaining or not, they come to win not to put on a show.

But tell me this....which team in this WC was entertaining to you? can you tell me that and we can compare them to italy.

[VivaItalia]

My fellow Italian fans,

As a senior Italia fan, let me clarify some things here:

1- Italy has stopped playing cattanacio style a while ago. Cattanacio is basically a man-to-man football. where ever your opponent goes, you follow him. For a long time, Italy has based their deffense on zonal deffense, meaning that every player has a zone and he does not follow the opponent to the other zones. But, unfortunately it's a reputation that Italy has had for a long time and it takes more time to be clarified for unproffessionals to chew it.

2- Italy played very balanced games during this world cup, very consistant, solid defense as usual and deadly attacks. that's why we won it. consistancy rules. Italy scored 12 goals which means they were among top 5 best attacking footballs. they conceded 2, which one was an otto goal, the other one was an unjust penalty (the more I watch it the more I see it as a stupid call!), meaning that they had the best defense line in the tournament considering the opponents they played against. and the last but not least, they played as a TEAM. unlike many other teams such as Brazil that played as 11 individuals! That was the secret behind their success. They played as a team.

Now why others don't like Italian style? it's their right to not to! as we dislike Brazilian style! as we dislike France's ultra defensive style (which no one refers to!), so let them be free to choose. If we all were to like only one style, then what's the use of having a world cup?!

But at the end of the day, and for another 4 years, ITALIA IS THE CHAMP! so enjoy it.

PS. I can't get enough of watching Italy-Germany and Italy-France penalty shoot-outs....god, that felt sooooooooooooo goood!

[VivaItalia]

Bro are u reading everyone elses posts?? No one said Italy is shit and yes they are a powerhouse the only thing ppl are saying is that they are a boring team to watch. No one likes a team that sits back and defends and then counters. I know u r going to say they dont and they scored heaps of goals but i am not talking about one or two games i am talking about the last 10-15 years, and from wat i hear longer they were very much the same b4 then.

LEt me just say something for you man. Italy is a great team and deserve their world cups, no one is denying that but i guess u have to be a neutral and not a fan of Italy to understand that they are NOT an entertaining team.

I think you were watching France my dear. Italy played a ballanced football. they no longer (since 1982) sit back and deffend. If you call a brainless all 11 players attacking football an entertaining football, then I'm sorry, never watch Italy's games.

But to have a base for this discussion, let me ask you some fundemental questions:
What do you consider an entertaining football?
What's your scale for an attacking and deffensive football?

To reach a conclusion, I demand you to be nuetral and fair, then I like to prove that people dislike Italy because they like other teams, not because Italy is not entertaining. If someone is nuetral, then this world cup would turn him into an Italy fan. I have seen some people who became Italy fans after this WC.

[EKBATAN]

yea viva but b4 he answers your post

i'd like to know which other team in the world cup played so great entertaining attacking football??

[milad]

LOL at france being "ultra-defensive." how can anyone not like brazil? they attack the whole game and all of their players have individual talent and they score lots of goals and almost always win. brazil are an example.

[EKBATAN]

^^^ ok we're gonna let him slide cuz he's only 15 and doesnt know much about football. LOL to come think of it, he wasnt even born for 1990 world cup

[Amir H F]

^^^ nuff said.

[babak_australia]

I think you were watching France my dear. Italy played a ballanced football. they no longer (since 1982) sit back and deffend. If you call a brainless all 11 players attacking football an entertaining football, then I'm sorry, never watch Italy's games.

But to have a base for this discussion, let me ask you some fundemental questions:
What do you consider an entertaining football?
What's your scale for an attacking and deffensive football?

To reach a conclusion, I demand you to be nuetral and fair, then I like to prove that people dislike Italy because they like other teams, not because Italy is not entertaining. If someone is nuetral, then this world cup would turn him into an Italy fan. I have seen some people who became Italy fans after this WC.

First of all i really enjoy this educated discussion, i feel there is good answers by both parties.

Now here is my answer.

Entertaining football is the kind where there is a balance of great defence and great attacking football. I concider midfield brilliance and a great invidual striker as well as an awesoem defence becasue without a great defence nothing is going to work.

Some great examples of great teams that i can remember.

Brazil of 94, they had a great defence and the strike partnership was simply amazing, one of the best i can ever remember in World Cup football. I would also like to say the Sweden team of 94, dont know if you remember but they were simply brilliant and fast became the neutrals favourite when they drew to Brazil in the group stage and later went to take out 3rd place. Italy was good at this tournament but then come the final they just didnt attack and became the usual Italy.

We move onto 98 and WOW, France was amazing, there defence was simply brilliant and midfield genius Zidane gave one of the greatest showings by an individual in World Cup history. How bout Brazil, they lit up the stage once again showing they are going to always be the team to beat even though they play entertaining football. Holland there is another team that was AMAZING in 98. From defence thru to attack they were a sight to see.

We move onto 2002 in which was a not a great World Cup for the big teams, however once again one team stood out and that was the mighty Brazil, once again playing unbeatable football and entertaininig football.

We move to 2006 where players like Ribery, Zidane, Pirlo, Cannavaro, Klose, Ando all shon but once again it was the likes of France, Germany, Argentina that played great all round attacking football, some may say Italy but i think Italy played diciplined attacking football, AKA attacking with no risk to there own defence, this may be great for Italy fans but it is boring to watch for everyone else.

Ther is no scale for an attacking and defensive style, every team does it different and that is wat makes the WC soo good to watch. Africans and Brazil defend by ATTACKING, some say the greatest form of defence is by attacking so that your defecne never sees the ball. Then u have France, Portugal and Argentina who play based around their midfield strengths. Then u have teams like Italy and Serbia who rely on a strong defence as there foundation. "You aint scoring and neither are we unless the rite opening comes" Perfect exaplmes: ITA V BRA 94, ITA V AUS 06, ITA V GER 06.

now i know u scored in 2 out of 2 of these games but the style was all defensive until an opening was seen. This is great football becasue the chance of a loss is very low but it is definitely NOT entertaining football.

Now i would like for you to understand that i am a fan of football and i am not going to let my bias sway my decision wen it came to giving the answer to your questions. Plz dont think i would. I am sure some may not agree to my opinion simply casue it is MY opinion and that is ok to me, but u asked a question and a gave as best an answer as i could with little to no bias.

The only great thing i remember about Italy is in 94 wen they played Bulgaria and Baggio scored two amazing goals, the second link being one of my fave WC goals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBD_v_8q0lU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h79UpagIKmk

Excuse me if this post is all over the place i couldnt be bothered reading it over again.

[EKBATAN]

Thank YOu for those videos

What you explained about entertaining football is something that is more of a fantasy rather than reality. Thats why those great performances only come once, its not consistent football.

1. No team can play attacking football the whole 90 min., its physically impossible.
2.No team can play 7 attacking games in a row to win the cup.
3. Italy played 6 attacking games and they were burned out form the 120 min. constant up and down attacking game vs. germany, therefore they were tired for the france game.
4. The brazil of 2002 only got to the final cuz it was an ODD world cup and all the good teams got eliminated. They had to beat TURKEY for god's sake

[milad]

^^^ ok we're gonna let him slide cuz he's only 15 and doesnt know much about football. LOL to come think of it, he wasnt even born for 1990 world cup

my age has nothing to do with this. fact is you got owned in the arguement so now you have to bring up my age?:bs: what part of my post was wrong?

[milad]

Thank YOu for those videos
What you explained about entertaining football is something that is more of a fantasy rather than reality. Thats why those great performances only come once, its not consistent football.
1. No team can play attacking football the whole 90 min., its physically impossible.
2.No team can play 7 attacking games in a row to win the cup.
3. Italy played 6 attacking games and they were burned out form the 120 min. constant up and down attacking game vs. germany, therefore they were tired for the france game.
4. The brazil of 2002 only got to the final cuz it was an ODD world cup and all the good teams got eliminated. They had to beat TURKEY for god's sake

last time i checked TURKEY was better than ghana, usa, and ukraine, and australia. 4 teams that italy was lucky to play against. tie against usa LOL. you only beat 2 quality teams to win the WC so dont complain about brazil. germany game 2 goals in last 2 mins... france game penalties.

[perspolisi]

Yeah seriously man, and not to mention Australia and Ukraine arent too bad either. Also lets add that out of the 9 goals France had 2 were penaltys, and they included easy games against Togo and Korea...the ONLY worthy offensive game for them was Spain.

easy game against Korea... refresh my memory if i'm mistaken, but for some reason i recall Italy losing to Korea in 2002...

also, Italy IS a defensive and deceptive team... their games are boring and if they had to come up like France to face Brazil and Portugal or like Germany to face Argentina, i bet you they wouldn't have qualified... no doubt!

[perspolisi]

You, milad and the rest (including my friends) DID NOT WATCH all of Italy's games obviously. If you did, you cannot tell me they played defensively. They attacked in all their games, im sure u at least saw the australia game.
They only game they played defensively was the france game and its cuz the game got f-cked up by that diving penalty at the beginning and they were tired from the germany game.
12 goals by 11 different players and NO ONE scored a real goal on them
THIS TEAM NOT ONLY WON DESERVINGLY BUT PUT ON ONE OF THE BEST CHAMPIONSHIP PERFORMANCES!

when it's for Italy it's not diving... when it's against Italy it's diving... lol

12 goals?! come on... give me a break... England - Portugal, France-Brazil, Germany-Argentina... and Italy played Ukraine?!?! and scored 3 goals!!! you've got to be kiddin'...

[Darvish11]

last time i checked TURKEY was better than ghana, usa, and ukraine, and australia. 4 teams that italy was lucky to play against. tie against usa LOL. you only beat 2 quality teams to win the WC so dont complain about brazil. germany game 2 goals in last 2 mins... france game penalties.

Turkey is not better than ghana, ukraine, and australia. Those 2 goals vs germany were not lucky at all, and they dominated that game.

vs france france's penalty was a dive, italy hit the crossbar, and got a goal that was called offside, which it wasnt