Skip to content

World Cup 2006 Semi-Finals Game 1

From Benny



4 July 2006



GERMANY 0-2 ITALY

Grosso 118

Del Piero 120



Totti chipped a delightful pass to Roma team-mate Perrotta but a poor first

touch was the invitation Lehmann needed to come off his line and smother the

ball. Germany's forwards tore through the heart of the Italian defence with a

rapid series of one-twos but as Klose played the ball out wide to Schneider the

imposing figure of Buffon had advanced off his line to close down the angles and

Schneider blazed over.



Early in the second half Klose gathered a pass 30 yards from goal and headed

straight from the centre of the box and showed tremendous strength to hold off

Gattuso then probably became the first player in this tournament to beat

Cannavaro but Buffon rushed off his line and kicked the ball clear. Schneider

dropped a ball between Grosso and Gattuso, Podolski rolled Materazzi as he

turned before drawing a good save from Buffon and Friedrich snatched at the

rebound.



With the spectre of penalties looming Italy made an aggressive start to extra

time. Metzelder fell on the right edge of the box as he battled with Gilardino

for a loose ball, Ballack arrived to cover, as Gilardino got to the by-line he

cut inside Ballack only to see his shot come back of Lehmann's post, shades of

Milan vs Barcelona. A minute later Zambrotta rattled the crossbar after Pirlo's

corner was only half cleared. Late in first half injury time Podolski, who did a

tremendous amount of work in midfield, wasted what was arguably Germany's

clearest opening. As Grosso backed off from the jet heeled Odonkor the

midfielder floated a super deep cross to the back post and Podolski headed yards

wide.



Seconds after Del Piero wasted a good opening by getting the ball caught in his

feet the Germans poured forward on the break through Kehl and Odonkor, Kehl's

angled pass took Podolski wide of Cannavaro but his shot was brilliantly saved

by Buffon. Gilardino laid off Iaquinta's delightful back heel to Del Piero but

he slashed his shot horribly wide. Iaquinta helped setup another chance with a

volleyed pass infield to Pirlo, he took advantage of Kehl's slip to unleash a

shot from 25 yards which Lehmann tipped out for a corner. Kehl didn't get enough

on Del Piero's corner, clearing the ball as far as Pirlo who was standing inside

the D, he took four steps forward (and three defenders with him) before slipping

a disguised pass to Grosso who struck a fantastic, first time left foot shoot

into the bottom left corner of Lehmann's net, queue Marco Tardelli style

celebrations from the Palermo defender. Cannavaro headed out a deep Ballack

cross then burst out of his box to follow up as Podolski intercepted, Cannavaro

headed the ball down and continued to run forward before Totti took the ball off

him and sent Gilardino racing down the left, Gilardino turned off the pace as he

approached the box and stepped past Metzelder before playing in the galloping

Del Piero with magnificent reverse pass, the Juve forward curled the ball first

time into the top corner of the net and seconds later the ref blew for full

time.



Klinsmann consoled his players after the match. He has proved all his critics

totally and utterly wrong and took the German football back 2 decades, back to

when the team played an aggressive brand of direct, attacking football. They

have a bright future with him as coach.



One of the all time great football matches played in a wonderful spirit by two

adventurous teams matched by Mexican referee Benito Archundia's officiating.

High on precision, high on flair and composed defending, especially from the

Italians. In extra time Italy were playing with three forwards (Gilardino,

Iaquinta and Del Piero) in addition to Totti and Pirlo. Pirlo and Gattuso were

outstanding and there aren't enough superlatives to describe the level of

performance of Fabio Cannavaro.



"Some foreign critics have too negative a view of Italian football. No top level

Italian club for example play the old-style man-marking game. Our football

has evolved." - Marcello Lippi, World Soccer April 2006



"This team often plays with three men up front, we play an attacking game and

one that calls for me and the other strikers to help out in midfield too. It

calls for the whole side to be involved all the time and it a long way from the

old catenaccio label that people like to stick on us."

Alberto Gilardino, World Soccer April 2006



Attendance : 65,000

Assists : Pirlo, Gilardino



http://soccer-europe.com

Chat room : http://www.lhcw.net/WorldCup

Rss feed : http://soccer-europe.com/RSS/News.xml



So Germany in Saturday's Games and Italy in Sunday's Game.



Today determines the other halp with Portugal vs France

Trackbacks

No Trackbacks

Comments

Display comments as Linear | Threaded

No comments

Add Comment

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

Form options