As all squad rosters for Euro 2012 have been made official to UEFA, so have Italy’s Group C adversaries: SPAIN, IRELAND, and CROATIA. If you want to find out who Del Bosque, Trapattoni, and Bilic have selected to feature in this Summer’s tournament, look no further!
With one month and a half to go before Euro 2012 officially begins this Summer, the design of the match tickets was revealed at Kiev’s Olympic Stadium (the venue for the final) and Warsaw’s National Stadium (where the tournament will get underway on June 8th) this week.
The ticket, beautifully colored, is horizontal with a large flower on the front, the leaves of which depict the stadium hosting a match and the flags of the two countries involved. The front also features the number of the match (in a top-right flower bud), along with seat details. Instructions on how to reach the stadium can be found on the reverse, along with a security strip.
Admit it people. At the first sight of Giampaolo Pazzini’s 3rd minute red card, most of you immediately connected your minds to World Cup 2006. That bloody (litterally) game vs. USA, where Brian McBride was the unfortunate recipient of Daniele De Rossi’s elbow fury. After that incident DDR apologized for his behaviour, immensely regretting that moment of craziness which nearly terminated his World Cup adventure right then and there.
In this case however, Pazzini has absolutely nothing to apologize for. He went for a high ball, extended his arm to balance himself, and accidentally hit John O’Shea in the temple -a very sensitive area with high capillary concentration. Translated: lots of blood flow in that region, the same blood which induced German referee Wolfgang Stark to take out the red card of his pocket and unjustifiably upset 87 minutes of World Cup qualifying football. In the words of Marcello Lippi: “We’re always complaining about referees in Serie A, but look at the foreign ones. We were down to 10 men for 90 minutes because of an interpretation of violence that we can all judge with our own eyes.”
After such an early incident, it almost makes the match retelling trivial by comparison. Italy could have easily panicked, folded under the pressure, given in psychologically. They did not. They held their heads high, fought back, and even scored the first goal through Vincenzo Iaquinta. A victory was the right compensation for Pazzini’s injustice. Buffon & the Italian fort held on. Until the 88th minute, when Ireland‘s Robbie Keane decided to spoil the party.
The Italian call-ups for their upcoming World Cup 2010 Qualifying matches vs. Montenegro (March 28) and Montenegro (April 4) have been revealed. Italy coach Marcello Lippi submitted the list of 23 players to FIFA earlier this week, a list which as usual contains notable absentees and a few surprises.
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