San Iker Si, Catenaccio No

Congratulations Porchetta, in your recent posts, you’ve managed to show your hatred towards 1) People of Asian descent (chinese-featured Sergio Ramos? WTF?), 2)People of Arab descent, and 3) People of African descent. You’re well on your way to showing your White Supremacist roots.!

Posted from  United States

I hate it when the fanatic fans of the loser team find something to complain about every match they lose. Both teams played a wonderful match of football and both teams had very good chances. In the end, Spain had the stronger nerves and beat Italy on PKs. Some people might say that penalty kicks are all luck, but actually they are a test of nerves and composure. And there is the fact that Spain beat the team who has the best goal keeper and penalty stopper in the world (no offence San Iker, you played wonderfully). It could have gone either way but I think the will to beat Italy was too strong in the end.
Good job Italy.
I suggest you get rid of Donadoni and defend your title in 2010.
If we meet again in the WC then you can TRY to exact your revenge.
GO SPAIN!
VIVA CASILLAS!
-Hawk
By the way, I’m spanish. I’m not some random american who jumped on the bandwagon.

Posted from  United States

Julien, i congragulate you for a very frank post. I think you summed up the summary of the match in a very few words. Spain had the momentum going at keeping the ball possession but that was not definately the story of the match at the end of the day. Italian defense marshalled by the evergreen pannucci and the young future rock Chiellini closed the shop for the marvellous feet footed spanish forwards Villa and Torres and did not even give them a sniff at the goal to their credit. Also, Italia definately had the best of chances( two of them) of the whole game to score goals. Italy’s penalty shoot-out defeat against Spain in the Euro 2008 quarter-finals has met with a mixed reaction in the peninsula.

While many critics have blasted the world champions for not attacking enough, i believe that they did a good job in limiting the devastating Spanish strikers.

Italians took on Spain looking to exploit all their positive characteristics until the end.
Italy were impeccable at closing down the space against a Spanish attack that was often dangerous and has extraordinary ability.
They may have been strong going forward, but the fact remains that we Italians had the only two clear-cut chances.
When the game went to penalties we paid the price for Iker Casillas’ brilliance and in the lottery of penalties, as he stopped two well-taken spot-kicks
We deserve praise whatever the outcome.

Porchetta you are a dumbass.
Seriously…
What do you consider Europe?
Why the hell wouldn’t you consider Spain as Europe?
How could you consider yourself anything BUT a racist.
Porchetta, think before you press “submit comment” please.
-Hawk

Posted from  United States

guys…this porco, nitti, tuscani, rossi etc character has been around the espn threads for a while, he claims the same BS and always mentions that italy is a true white european nation yet he never seems to be able to follow through his arguments which points out the level of his dementend ideas. Possession means attacking porco, waiting in the back is what cowards do, and your dives didnt work this time cause toni cant pretend, he simply is clumsy. Italy actually attacked more this time and i prefer donadoni’s approach than the usual italian way. Now porco… is camoranesi a true european? a true italian? as perrotta? as del piero? nesta? inzaghi? oh of course they are not from the true italy right? true true true…what is true? secret-its in the eye of the beholder, just grasp that idea. nationality is a simple bureaucratic measure, people don’t grow out of the ground as you seem to believe.

Posted from  Spain

it was Aragones that called Henry a monkey…remember that last world cup?

No one is defending what Aragones said about Henry.
We do not control what other people do.
Aragones is not the voice of spain…
-Hawk

Posted from  United States

And some of these posters are not the voice of Italy.
So dont label all Italians as racists..

I never labeled Italians as racist and I never will.
I know not to judge a group of people by the words of a few fanatics who don’t think before speaking. I hope you did not misunderstand me and think that I said anything against Italians…
-Hawk

Posted from  United States

HELLO

Posted from  United States

Well played España, well played, from a person who was torn between both the Azzurri and La Furia Roja. In the end, my Azzurri side won out, so I wasn’t the happiest of campers at the end of yesterday, but that’s football. I’ll be rooting for you to win it all, as much as I love a certain Andrei Arshavin from Russia. Viva España!

kj – bang on brother.

to the spanish contingent in here: please ignore this porchetta guy. i sincerely have my doubts about him being italian all together. the guy cannot even spell the town he is from and even has a hate on for ’southern’ italians – basically anyone south of rome, as he put it. only problem is that the town he claims to be from is about 40 km’s SOUTH of rome. that should give you some insight on this knob. 100% clown material.

anyway, congrats to the spaniards for their victory. personally, i thought it was a fairly evenly played game with each team trying to utilse their respective strengths (spain with a possession-centric midfield and italy with their unparalleled ability to close down spaces effectively. neither team played to their true potential and dont think it would have been that entertaining for any neutral fan to watch.

good luck against russia.

Posted from  Canada

( I know I don’t speak for only myself when I comment this )

To all of Porchetta’s ignorant comments:
Say all you want, but in the end, who was the better goalkeeper?
Yeah, not your Italian Gigi Buffon in this case.
Say it was a coin flip, say that Spain dove a lot, say that you don’t consider us Spainiards Europeans, call us Arabs or Hispanics, call us and say whatever, but nothing is going to be more embarrasing than having the whole world find out that your team payed the referees for a guaranteed win in one of the Euros.
Stop wasting our time harrasing our blogs.
Italy’s gone home. Get over yourself.
Nothing you say or do is going to change that.
So what if Spain didn’t score any goals against Italy, did Italy score any against us? Didn’t think so.
Mhm, okay we were diving alright. Why do you say that? Because Spain players were always on the ground? Get a replay of the whole game and see how many times the Italians were on the ground too. You can’t say they were diving just because they happened to fall. Do you hear any of us Spanish bagging on how they fell and called it ‘diving’ in this patricular game?
Get your facts straight before embarrasing yourself by commenting on all of our blogs saying how Italy is better.
Italians are cocky, and I don’t mean this to all.
I mean this to some, especially you. Spain won. End of story.
Who cares if it was through penalties? If Italy won through penalties, you yourself would be saying it was fair and square, I guarantee it.
Put yourself in our position and see how hypocritial you sound.

All in all, Spain played amaingly, as did Italy. Both played their hearts out and showed us the meaning of football. Sadly, only one can advance and it happened to be Spain, due to the number of saves our goalkeeper made as to the number of saves Italy’s did. Regardless, Viva Espana, and I hope to see them in the finals against Germany.

Well played, Espana, superior though disadvantaged by two wrong ref decisions. Supreme swiftness and ball control – made Italians look like lame sheep at times, far more close shots at the goal, and and and!

ALL FACTS, FACTS, FACTS !

Lady LUCK refused to favour Italy this time, as she had done so often!

ESANA – the new MEDITARRANEAN KING (QUEEN ?) OF SOCCER !

See you in the final against Germany !

Greets from Alemania !

yes, italy were sooooooo ‘lucky’ to beat germany 2-0 in the world cup semifianl on foreign soil with an exclusively german fanbase. that curling shot by grosso that went past a fully oustretched 6′-4″ lehman must have bounced off a crossbar, hit the lamp post, then bounced into the starbuck’s kiosk on the second level concourse, and them myseriously emerged froma blade of grass and caught a gust of wind just before reaching the inside netting of the far post. give me a fucking breaqk, armani.

Posted from  Canada

Allright, congrats. I\ve been noticing that most have been saying that Xavi and Iniesta played amazing attacking football. I have to ask, did you even watch the match?? I mean in the first half and beginning of 2nd spain kept the ball and passed it around with no goal of going towards goal and getting one. However this changed when Aragones took off both Iniesta and Xavi who i think played a poor match. And were replaced by Cesc and Cazorla had a VERY good effect on Spain as Cesc immediately took over and controlled the midfield and most of Spains forward play. I cant imagine why Cesc would not start agaisnt Russia as Obviously Xavi and Iniesta were inefective and have been below par for most of the tournament and every time Cesc has come off the bench has made a positive effect on Spain. Get over Xavi and Iniesta and bow down to the new generation! All hail CESC!

Posted from  United Kingdom

Wow… Why the effing hell u getting so pissy? I mean i just told you my opinion and get all pissy. And thats all true but im from Finland. And i believe that what i wrote is true and believe that Cesc had a bigger impact on the game, excluding the penalty, than either Xavi or Iniesta had.

Posted from  United Kingdom

Karri you a female?

Posted from  United States

No…

Posted from  United Kingdom

I agree with Karri.
Amazingly put, Cesc is an over-the-top player and gives it his all whenever he is on the field. He should definitely start.

DVLDAWG, I also agree.
For those who are still complaining about Italy losing, insisting that it wasn’t a fair game, shut your mouths. Italy’s out, not coming back for Euro 2008. Get outta here and stop bagging on teams who are still in the game, especially Spain for dominating your team in penalty shoot-outs.

Aragones won’t change his mind
Luis Aragones insists he will not remain Spain coach, even if the national team win Euro 2008.

The veteran boss has led Spain to the semi-finals of the European Championship for the first time in 24 years.

Sunday’s penalty shoot-out win over world champions Italy has set up a last-four showdown with Group D rivals Russia in Vienna on Thursday evening.
http://www.fanguide08.net/ShowArticle.aspx?ID=60

Posted from  Ukraine

Lamagiaca,

peased to see you s u f f e r so much that you feel compelled to take refuge in the PAST… because the PRESENT is too gloomy for you.

We folks here in Germany are happy about our team’s standing (PRESENT)
and are looking forward to the match against Turkey (FUTURE),
after which we will either take on Spain or Russia (FUTURE)
and maybe even win the CUP (possible FUTURE)…

So it’s 1 x PRESENT plus 3 x FUTURE for GERMANY …
and 1 x PAST for italy …

ITALY gone poooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooofffffffffffffff !
Ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffftt !

Hehe.

Yummieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

no, it’s not the past. we are CURRENTLY the world champions which we won by beating the germans by the way.

hehehe

Posted from  Canada

Lamagica,

good luck as you continue on your time journey.

You might, in passing, see how many more top placements in WCs and EUROs
( 1st, 2nd and 3d ) we have won than you.

Italia out Italia out Italia out Italia out Italia out Italia pffftttsssh

GERMANY IN GERMANY IN GERMANY IN GERMANY IN GERMANY IN GERMANY IN

Hehehe !

“unfortunately, i fail to grasp 1 thing: why do all of you hate my country, Italy?”
Because everyone hates everyone here, still didn’t get it?
Sports actually should have positive effect for international understanding, but it doesn’t.

Posted from  Germany