Azzurri v Georgia: Is Anyone Still Awake?

God that was boring. A win is a win, and three points were absolutely necessary so Donadoni and his team deserve full credit for that, but they certainly don’t get any style points, do they?

Neither team put together a sustained early threat, though Luca Toni was putting a ton of work in trying to connect the midfield and the strikers, dropping deep for the ball and playing it forward to his compatriots throughout the first half. The Georgians were entirely focused on defending, though, never putting more than three people near the Italy box even when they went behind, and the Azzurri had a hell of a time creating openings despite Toni’s eager running. Ambrosini was busy in the midfield and Fabio Grosso was taking advantage of his rare appearance to do a little foraging of his own, but nothing ever happened at the end of the the balls they played: Quagliarella was unimpressive and Toni incredibly unlucky (killed the bar with a header), while Di Natale worked his tail off for the other two but never got any reward.

Italy increase their pressure in the last 10 minutes of the first half but it took a completely bizarre play to put them into the lead: Andrea Pirlo put a long free-kick over the wall, and the keeper either slipped, or misread the ball, or just threw himself to the floor for no reason — whatever happened, he ended up on his ass and the ball went into the back of the net; Pirlo was so embarrassed he didn’t even really bother to celebrate.

Though the Azzurri never looked like losing, their performance in the second half was even more uninspired than that in the first, with pressure failing to result in shots, and counters by fully three eager Georgians getting far too deep into Italian territory. Old man Panucci had some well-timed tackles, but as often as not it was poor Georgian decision-making that caused their attacks to break down, not confident, smart defending. A 1-0 result was looking pretty much inevitable when Italy put together perhaps their only lovely sequence: Di Natale played the ball forward to Toni, who held off defenders to knock the ball out wide to Grosso, who took a touch to settle and then chipped it confidently over the Georgian keeper. And there was much rejoicing.

Like I said: A win is a win, but this wasn’t exactly the convincing sort of display anyone wanted to see ahead of the Scotland match.

Also:
•Pasquale Foggia played about 20 minutes bland in his Azzurri debut.
•Don’t look now, Don, but The Pimp, AKA Marecello Lippi, wants his team back.

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Category: Azzurri, Results, Rumors & News