Defending champions and one of the sides that was highly likely to win this year’s World Cup, has crashed out the tournament. Italy was shown the door by Slovakia, who displayed tremendous composure and skills to beat the defending champions. The Slovakians, who were younger, faster and more determined deserved to win and they did, that too in style. Although Italy did find its touch during the last stages of the game and came pretty close to drawing level with Slovakia, it wasn’t good enough.

It wasn’t this match only that ensured that Italy will not move any further in the tournament. In fact, their game against New Zealand was the defining moment. New Zealand is by no means even a decent side and the way Italy struggled against them, gave sure signs to the fans that Italy wasn’t going to do too well this time round.

It is not that Italy was totally outplayed by the Slovakians. They had their opportunities but somehow could not take advantage of some wonderful goal scoring positions. It is very disappointing to see great sides go down the way Italy did. But I guess the team never played as a unit and when a side is unable to convert the chances into goals, it becomes very difficult to win matches. It wasn’t just the strikers’ inability to goal, even the defense that is known to be the best in the world could not live up to the expectations.

In an international friendly played at Cesena, a second string Italy side beat Sweden 1-0, with the help of the only goal scored by the centre-back Giorgio Chiellini. The world champions found it very hard to impose themselves on their disciplined opponents, who were also playing without their star player Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Sweden having already been ousted from World Cup qualification failed to make any impressions and seemed very unlikely to make a come back as a side that had glorious 1990s.

Marcello Lippi had major changes to the Italy side which played nearly to its full strength in their 0-0 draw against Netherlands. The Italy side hardly had any familiar faces in Cesena apart from Chiellini who of course is a regular in the main team. It promised to be an interesting game with Italy full of players hoping to make a mark before the World Cup and Sweden players trying to impress their new boss Erik Hamren. The action soon began and Italy was caught off guard only 3 minutes into the match when Tobias Hysen got passed the Italian offside trap. However, the one-handed save by Federico Marchetti denied the eventual.

Italy soon stamped their dominance on the match and Sweden had a narrow escape when Andreas Isaksson tipped a header from Chiellini over the bar. It was only in the 28th minute that Italy tested success when Chiellini made a diving header to post his second overall goal for the side. The second half of the game saw plenty of substitutions which made it very difficult for either side to create any chances.

1. I would rather see two good team play longer than 90 minutes.  Who really has the endurance to last that long.  Who will fight till the end or just give up.
2. While it is one of the sadest and gives a player the feeling of helplessness, it is one of the fairest.  Both teams have an equal chance.  Both have equal numbers of shots on goal.

Next Up: The first semi-final game is between Germany and Turkey which should be very interesting.  I will like to see the turntout of this game.

Future: Tomorrow Italy plays Spain to decide who will play Russia. Now this will be the game of the quarters. I liked watching Germany and Portugal but I will enjoy watching Spain and Italy do battle. Maybe it is because two of my favorite teams-Barcelona and AC Milan-are Spanish and Italian teams, respectively.

Two Quick Hits: 

1. Barcelona and AC Milan are both vying for the services’ of the Arsenal striker, Adebayor.  An AC Milan scout believes his team has a 50% chance of acquiring the striker.
2. Former Sunderland keeper Tim Carter has been found dead in a park with a rope tied around his neck.  Authorities do not believe that there is any foul play involved and his death is unfortunately classified as a suicide.

Germany beat Portugal today.  While the Portugese side did very well in taking the champions title for their group, Germany snapped up their hopes for 08.  The game got very exciting in the last minutes as Portugal scored a goal to make the final score 3-2.

Future Fixtures:

Tomorrow- Croatia vs. Turkey: I like this game.  The heroics of Turkey in their win against Petr Cech and the Czech Republic proved to the world that they are here to play.  However, they did trail in that game which is a weakness.  At the same time, Croatia did win all of their group games defeating Germany in the process.  Once again, I like this game. 

Saturday- Holland vs. Russia: In short, miracles may happen, but Holland hasn’t shown very many weaknesses.  I like the competition and level of play Igor Akinfeev will be up against but I don’t like his chances.  The power of the Oranje will prove to be too much for Russia on this day.

Sunday- Spain vs. Italy: This will be another good game.  Power vs. Power.  Class vs. Class. What better game than this that pits two top class keepers against one another(Casillas v. Buffon).  The defensive corps each possess.  The midfield so chalked full of talent.  And the strikers to finish.  This is truly the game that I will watch.

 Transfer Rumors:

• Barcelona put out an opening bid on David Trezeguet.

 Italy: defeated France 2-0 today as they will be moving on as the runners up from Group C.  They will be facing Spain in the knockout round-Quarter Final.  This will be a good match.

Holland: ended the hopes of Romania as they are the true spoilers of Group C, first with a tie against France, then with the same result against Italy.  I have a new found respect for the whole lineup aside from the afore posted Chivu and Mutu.  Holland will face either Sweden or Russia who go head to head tomorrow to round off the Group D.

 What’s ahead: Tomorrow Spain will take on Greece who are set to finish in last place of Group D if they do not pull off a win tomorrow against first place Spain.  Spain will finish in first tomorrow even if they lose.  They have defeated both Russia and Sweden making it impossible for them to lose the top spot by points. 

Russia or Sweden: Based on previous games, Sweden has the advantage over Russia.  Sweden only lost 2-1 as Russia lost 4-1.  However, the amount of goals scored does not really give any team the edge.  Russian Goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev is a guy that I really like, however he and his squad are still relatively young.  They will be together for many Euros and World Cups to come.  I will watch this game to just see a good match and I leave no prediction for tomorrow.

Tomorrow the Big Game! 

 Italy versus France will be one of the biggest games for this group stage.  Romania will try and halt the Holland stampede that took down both France and Italy.  If Romania wins, they will pass as the runners-up with Holland shocking the entire European Cup faithful.

Netherlands vs. Italy(3-0)

This is a complete shocker to me.  Not that I don’t respect the Netherlands’ side, as they have a lot of talent, I just thought that Italy would win.  This changes things and may even make my predictions look stupid.  However, we are only one game in, nothing to worry.  Maybe losing their team captain has made things uneasy.

Romania vs. France(0-0) 

I really didn’t see this coming.  Romania did not win however, this should be taken as a loss for France and their supporters.  This should not have happened.  When everyone says that this group is the “group of death” they did not mean that Romania would be a killer.  As a matter of fact, they were written off–completely.

 My predictions for the death group:

• Italy versus France will be a nice game to watch as both teams will be putting everything they have into it.  They need to to make a rebound however only one will.
• Romania will be playing the Netherlands on their next game…they will lose.  Then they will move on to an already mad Italian team…they will lose.
• Netherlands: My prediction was wrong and they will pass.  They will win against Romania which will put them with 6 points.  Now that this has occurred, I’m thinking that they will take Group C Champion honors.

Coming Up:

1. Greece versus Sweden
   
2. Spain versus Russia

Quick Hits

• Man U has reported Real and does not like them pursuing Ronaldo.
• Man City has offered Ronaldinho 200,000 pounds a week…roughly $400,000.  That’s a lot of 0’s.