Throwing off the straitjacket of negativity

By Boris Mellor
July 10 2006

Before the game my head told me that Italy would win after extra time, but by heart was rooting for France. It should have been the other way round, I should have known that France would dominate, but in my heart fear the worst.

Yes Italy won, and most of the pundits predicted that, but their reasons were all wrong. Nearly everyone claimed France were too old and would run out of steam. But even at 10 men the French looked the livelier. Italy had only one shot on target the whole 120 minutes (France had 5 and 5 off target).

 

France probably sealed their own fate when they sat back after going ahead with the penalty. Perhaps the Italians pushed them back, but for much of the first half the French conceded too much territory. Vieira and Barthes flapped at every high ball, and it looked liked the Italians would dominate. It seemed even more so when the Italians put the ball in the net, which was ruled offside, at the beginning of the second half. But that was they last time the Azzurri ever looked remotely interested in attacking. It seemed as if they were waiting for penalties.

 

Thus contrary to all the conventional wisdom the French played well enough to win, apart from their wayward shooting. When the Italians finally won it was not due to the French being too old or not good enough.  It was not due to Zidane or Henry playing poorly. It was not due to poor defending, although there was a brief period in the first half when that was the case. It was not directly due to Vieira being injured, or Henry substituted, or even Zidane being sent off, unless you use convoluted logic to prove that the French would have scored every penalty. But I assume Trezeguet would still have taken a penalty and missed.

 

France lost because Italy scored 5 perfect penalties. Now quite a few people, myself included, argued that the Italians were now playing attractive football. That might have been the case up until Sunday, but on Sunday evening they reverted to type. Motty suggested they were “throwing off the straitjacket of negativity”. As Mike Bassett England Manager would say “my arse!”.