Archive for February 10th, 2009

Brazil vs. Italy Preview: London’s Emirates Stadium Gets Ready for the ‘Derby of the World’

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

The mother of all games, or as Lippi and Falcao tagged it, the ‘Derby of the World‘. As yet another week of international friendlies begins, fans everywhere will be eagerly anticipating some of the highest quality international football action in the year. I mean just think about it: Argentina vs. France and Spain vs. England all in the same week?

The most anticipated game of them all of course, will be Tuesday’s fixture at the Emirates Stadium of London, Brazil vs. Italy. These two teams have not faced each other since 1997 (a friendly tournament encounter to prepare for the France ’98 world cup) but boy do they have some serious history together. Who here doesn’t remember the 1970 and 1994 World Cup finals? Of course, we Italians would rather forget those and prefer to remember 1982′s 3-2 win with Paolo Rossi’s hat-trick. So far, previous encounters puth both teams on equal records: 12 matches, five wins a side and only two draws (including 1994′s 0-0 tie which lead to Brazil’s penalty-shootout victory).

For a cute trip down memory lane visit Francesco’s post over at the Italy Offside. In the meantime, let’s preview this epic showdown set to take place on Tuesday.

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