A clip of what transpired in the last few moments of the Itall vs Slovakia match. Fabio Quagliarella is inconsolable.
Slovakia pull off the upset of the World Cup as they beat defending champions, Italy 3-2 with a brace from Robert Vittek and another from Kamil Kopunek. Italy managed to score through Di Natale and Fabio Quagliarella. But it was too late.
An aging Italian team cobbled together by Marcelo Lippi was unable to muster the imagination and pace needed to overcome a hungrier opponent. This was the weakest group- with Paraguay, Slovakia, and New Zealand the other countries. Italy, a shadow of their 2006 World Cup squad were still expected to get through. A draw would have given them the second spot today.
This is the first time in World Cup history that both defending champions and runners up have been sent packing in the group stage. The larger picture is of a waning Western European presence with South America ascendant. The result is that of a World Cup that has turned upside down many safe predictions.
Paraguay and Slovakia are through. New Zealand are out but not before having everyone in the world pulling for them to go through. These underdogs will not be forgotten. For Italy, the inquest is just beginning.
2 comments on “Video: Italy crash out of the World Cup!”
I agree about the waning of Western Europe in some ways and it raises a very interesting issue to me. I am very much anti-Platini’s plan to force teams to have domestically based players. That said, I think it is a major advantage for countries to have their own domestic leagues where young players can be developed. Ah, you say, but there is a major contradiction in those two positions. I think that isn’t necessarily the case for two reasons:
1) Regardless of what would be best for Europe I am a major proponent of the free market in the sports world
2) I think there is an equally large benefit to each country and to the world of their being two to four leagues that are really better than the rest since that raises the level of play of all of the stars
In other words, to follow off of point two, requiring that each team have domestically based players playing may solve the problems caused for those nations by an influx of top level foreign talent but it simultaneously lowers the level of play of every country’s top players. The question then is what is the solution that will help European (re: English and, as time goes on, Spanish and Italian) countries counterbalance the comparative advantage that countries like Argentina, Brazil, and the Netherlands (add in all of the surrounding countries who can also place young players in these leagues) have in developing their young players due to their very good but not great domestic leagues? I don’t know but the FAs of all the western European countries better be trying to come up with a good solution.
Thoughts?
Jesse G., good points. I think the problems facing England and Italy are different from Spain. The Spanish actually have long established “canteras”, youth academies attached to these major clubs which develop the talent of a Iker Casillas or a Cesc Fabregas. They are considered the best in the world. Unlike Ajax which does it to earn money, the canteras do it to replenish their clubs. So they are assured of top domestic talent. They also have a league which siphons of the best overseas talent – so when you look at Barca and Real they are a good mix of both. Unfortunately for England and Italy, they have paid less attention to their youth academies – preferring the easier route of importing top talent from other countries. E.g., Chelsea, Arsenal, AC Milan, Inter. I think Platini is trying to force them to change their way of doing business by introducing these 6+5 rules which means that in the long term these clubs have to start developing their own players otherwise they will not survive. In the end, this will benefit the national teams too.