First semifinal, Italia v Espana

As my regular readers will know, I like food, I like to sprinkle references to popular national dishes in my articles and for this match up, we will have the battle of Paella and Spaghetti Bolognese. 

This semifinal clash between Hispania (Rome's name for the province) and Italia is a battle of Southern Europe. Two Mediterranean, very Catholic, Latin nations, but yet very different in their temperament and at the moment, that is well reflected in their respective styles of football.

Some observers might feel that this is a clash between two titans of European football, in a way it is, but in a historical football sense it is not. Espana despite all the talent available to them only won their first title in 2008,  Please, don’t let me be misunderstood, the fact that they then won the world cup in 2010 and retained the Euros in 2012, just means they had an exceptional side for four years. (I know they won the Euro in 1964 , but that was just between four teams so does not really count)

The Azurri have won four world cups going back to before World War II and the Euros once and been runners up twice in both competitions.  Forza Italia is a giant on the European football stage on a par with Ze Shermans.

What is the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of Espana, no, "not the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain", it is of course the concept of Siesta. This idea of having a rest every afternoon perfectly reflects their languid style of life, despite their Latin origins. 

This current crop of matadors who are representing Espana, have not excited in this tournament. There has been a distinct lack of Oles on show. Hold on, I can hear you say, they are the top scoring side. Yes, they have won five three and five nothing in two of their last three games, but two of those went to extra time and against the watch makers from the Alps, they had a numerical advantage, player wise, for forty six minutes and still could not score.

Espana are probably the most adept side at retaining possession of the ball, but they do not enough with it. They lack the killer touch. They have lost their swords in the bull fighting ring.

They even contrived to miss two penalties and were lucky, that the alpine bell ringers dropped a clangor and missed three out of four.

One of the players who could see most action tonight is the goalie Unai Simon, who is actually a Basque born in Vitoria, site of one of the Duke of Wellington's greatest victories in the peninsular war against the Froggies.  He has had a mixed tournament going from zero to hero after this moment of embarrassment but then redeeming himself with some fantastic saves to rescue his side when they were wobbling.

A moment Simon will want to forget

Another player to watch out for is the starlet called Pedri, a mere lad of eighteen, he kicked the ball in the clip above. Apart from that he has been impressive.

Pedri, Still wet behind the ears

One other thing that should be mentioned is that players from smaller clubs feature in both squads, there is no player from Real Madrid for example, something that would have been unthinkable in the past. 

As mentioned above, Espana retained their European title in 2012 with a four to nothing drubbing of the Linguini munchers. Losing by four goals in an international is always a bad thing to happen. When it occurs in the final of a major tournament, it is a major embarrassment and one that calls for revenge of some sort. 

Interestingly enough, there are still some members of the teams from that night in July 2012 who will be featuring tonight. All three of them are defenders, Jordi Alba for Espana, and Leonardo Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini for Italia.

Bonucci

Chiellini, out for revenge

This is not a good thing for Espana, Chiellini as you can see from his picture would not look out of a place as member of the mob in one of the godfather films. He looks like he enjoys hurting people. Bonucci, whilst also somebody you would not want to meet in a dark alley, has more of the feeling of someone who would ask after the health of your mother before giving you a good kicking.

These two will hold a blood feud against anything that slights them and they are the defensive rock on which this Italia team is based. Their motto is “You shall not pass” as Gandalf said to the Balrog in the fellowship of the ring.

Surprisingly for Italia, this current team is very exciting to watch going forward, I wrote in a previous article about the fact that twenty three out of the twenty six ply their trade in their homeland and this is definitely having a positive influence on the squad. In contrast, a majority of the toreadors play for foreign clubs.

They suffered a big injury blow when Spinazolla their marauding full back who had been very impressive ruptured his Achilles against the grey men from Brussels and he will be missed.

If the game is tight, expect to see a lot of players rolling around on the floor feigning death to try and waste time.  The Italians used this tactic in their last match and it nearly came back to bite them in the bottom.  In fact when they scored their first goal against the sprouts, there was a gondolier playing dead lions in the penalty box as the ball went into the net. He had a remarkable resurrection that would not have looked out of place on the stage of La Scala.

Better get up now

This is a very tough game to call, in the battle of the Olive oils, I am going to say that the Extra Virgin Mary of Italia will prevail over the cold pressed oil of Espana. We will be back tomorrow with a look at EnGerLand versus the Vikings.