i find it quite funny that the only ones who aren't arguing in here are the spanish and the italians.
Gerd, to be honest, dismissing Lami's opinion by calling him biased is cheap. even
if he was biased, u should still try and argument your points without belittling his opinion (coz that's what u're doing when u start your post by calling him biased....u're basically killing the conversation before it even begins). besides i don't see why Lami should be biased about this. he's not italian nor spanish... perhaps he has his own preferences, but that could be said about everyone of us (wich is probably why u included yourself among the "biased ones").... if we should restrain ourselves from expressing our opinions everytime we don't have an absolutely neutral perspective on that particular matter, then we should spend our entire lives with our mouth shut and places like this forum would be pointless.
Instead u call him biased, then u call yourself biased, not without remarking that, unlike him, u’re aware of it (as if being aware of your partial point of view could make your opinion more valuable or less biased)…. And then u extrapolate the only unquestionable fact he used to support his argument and say it’s debeatable???
Saying that Italy had their fair share of chances is not the debeatable Gerd….. scoring chances are infact one of the few certain things about football matches, because u can count them. Stats don’t define matches…. But they certainly are undebeatable by definition.
Spain had 14 shots, Italy had 11. Spain had 52% possession, Italy had 48%. …… actually I could do even better than Lami and tell u that up until Italy had 11 players on the pitch the numbers were exactly the same for both teams. 11 shots for both teams…. 6 shots on goal for both teams…. 50% possession for both teams.
This is not debeatable Gerd: theese are stats. Now, if u would tell me “
yes but that means absolutely nothing as stats are absolutely unreliable when it comes to describing a match”.. then I would say “
fair enough, u’re entirely right. As a matter of fact we were outplayed yesterday, and that was pretty evident, even though there’s no stat supporting this statement”.
But if u had said to me “
u’re completely biased, your stats are debeatable, but for the sake of the argument, let’s pretend they are not…..” well, I would find your answer annoyingly condescending and i would be tempted not to bother replying at all.... even if it’s you.
I’m sure u realize I’m only telling u this coz I know u’re better than this and i actually care about u. if it would have been anyone else I would have just moved on and ignored the whole thing.
And now to Lami. Each of your arguments is pretty much undeniable. We looked very tired and heavy on our legs, while the Spanish were insanely fit. But that’s an explanation, not an excuse; it can’t be an excuse because this is a sport, and “being fit” is part of the game. Of course I’m not gonna blame our players for being tired. Our football is very demanding in terms of energy and we’re in july….. if anything I would give credit to the Spanish who were some absolute freaks of nature yesterday, running all over the pitch like it was December!
U also mentioned prandelli made some mistakes, and that’s also true. as a matter of fact we might say that 3 of the 4 goals spain scored were caused by prandelli’s bad decisions….. but we can’t put the coach out of the equation and use it as an excuse. The coaches are a factor; we praise them when they get it right and criticize them when they screw it up. But we can’t say “
yeah they won, but that was also because the coach messed up big time”…..just like the fitness argument, this could be a reason, but not an excuse. Every goal somehow comes from an opponent’s mistake: it might be a midfielder getting dispossessed on the break, or a defender missing a tackle…. or a coach making a wrong substitution or fielding a wrong formation, it doesn't matter.
U’re also mentioning the fact that we had pretty much as many scoring chances as spain, but couldn’t put it on the back on the net. But once again, this is no excuse…. It wasn’t bad luck…. It was just casillas being casillas.
Had prandelli lined up balzaretti… had prandelli left montolivo on the pitch (WTF was he thinking!!), had we been in a better shape… each of these variables could have determined a different outcome, but that’s irrelevant. Football isn’t played on a chalkboard nor on a computer. It’s played on the pitch, and there are a thousand variables that come into play. Hundreds of different episode can impact a game.....
but those episodes are actually part of the game (whether it’s a gk who is having a great day, or a team which is completely exhausted or a coach who makes a stupid call).
Dismissing your opponent’s credits “
because of the episodes which had an impact on the game” would be pretty much like saying “
yeah I lost the elections, but that was only because my opponent got more votes than me!”. 
There’s a quote from sacchi wich suits this conversation perfectly: “
there’s no human feat that, if we’re trying to belittle it, can’t be ascribed to lucky circumstances or episodes”. That’s absolutely true. I could write down right now 2 reports of the Italy germany game; one in which i would be able to describe it as a amazing victory for Italy; another that would picture the match as nothing but a series of unfortunate episodes for the germans.
Having said that, yes, this spain team is not formed by invincible gods and u shouldn’t really pay too much attention to those drama-queens who like to come up with sensationalist statements like “this is the greatest team ever” (actually, if I may give u a suggestion, u should leave a football conversation as soon as u hear someone using the expression “ever”, as that is usually a good sign u’re talking to an idiot)……
But yes, they are an absolutely amazing team and they are writing history, so a bit of hype is to be expected.
