© EuroFootball.com
Spain and Italy! Impatiently we awaited a wonderful football game in Gdansk, where two football mega-states met. It must be admitted that these are undoubtedly the best matches in this European football championship so far. It's not only some of the best players in the world, but also two different mentalities, cultures, tactics. Moreover, they are the winners of the last two World Cups.
Spain started the match with the traditional 4-3-3 formation, without real forwards, with a huge concentration of playmakers in the center of the field. Italy once again presented a tactical scheme 3-5-2. Its basis is a high concentration of defenders, who can become attackers when needed, a wide play on the wings, an optimal, even somewhat risky number of defenders.
Spain started by controlling the midfield. The appearance of three players in one position on the field raised the question of how they would share the ball. All these players like to control and keep the ball close to them, because they are Xabi Alonso, Sergio Busquets, and Xavi. Although such a mechanism helped Spain win the previous European and World Championships, in the battle against Italians, the short Spanish passes in the midfield became a real brake in their game and closed them in the center.
Only David Silva and Andres Iniesta stood out with their explosive creativity, heading towards Gianluigi Buffon's goal. We cannot underestimate Italy's defense, which significantly contributed to Spain not looking like themselves.
Adopting the tactical scheme and most of the players (6 players from this club started the game) from Juventus, Cesare Prandelli decided not to let the opponents play. They understood and learned from Jose Mourinho that in order to beat Barcelona (6 players from this club started the game), you cannot allow them to play their usual short passing and pressing game.
The Italians met their opponents quite high, often seeing Andrea Pirlo defending in the Spanish half, and Giorgio Chiellini challenging Xavi in the center of the field. Daniele De Rossi, who plays safely in defense in his club, also handled defense well. This game allowed them to push the Spanish forces further away from their goal.
It was quite unexpected to see the Spanish national team defending so passively. Unlike in Barcelona or Real Madrid (even 10 players from these clubs started the game), the Spaniards did not press the opponents in their half and did not try to quickly regain possession of the ball. By doing so, the Italians could pass the ball more easily. Unlike Vincente del Bosque's players, they tried to use every centimeter of the field and made many high passes to the wings, where players like Emanuele Giaccherini were active, also getting from Mario Balotelli and Antonio Cassano.
The match stood out for its dynamics. One team's attacks were followed by another's. One of the most dangerous moments involved D.Silva, A.Iniesta. The latter had a dangerous shot on goal in the 44th minute, and just a minute later, after the traditional long pass from the center to the wing, Thiago Motta tried to redirect the ball towards the goal with his head.
Both teams went to rest with a balanced score.
After the break, we saw a slightly different game, with many tactical changes. Firstly, the Italians did not retreat into defense. Even after scoring a goal, they trusted their opponents close to their goal. For this, they changed the tactical scheme to 4-5-1 when Sebastian Giovinco entered the field, paying more attention to stopping the Spanish game in the center.
Meanwhile, V.del Bosque, seeing his team's slow and sluggish game, sent Jesus Navas onto the field, later followed by Fernando Torres. These players significantly changed the team's dynamics. The game on the wings appeared, especially on the right, where J.Navas found himself, in attack F.Torres began to exploit the overly "high" Italian defensive line, where spaces were created for this eager striker. For this reason, the Chelsea striker had two great opportunities to score. The first opportunity, when he went one on one with G.Buffon, reminiscent of the 2008 final. Then he scored a goal. Yesterday, unfortunately not. In the second opportunity, he could have placed the ball more precisely over the goalkeeper or passed it to J.Navas, who was waiting for the pass, but...
In the second half, the Spaniards seemed to have recovered and demonstrated their usual championship-style game. The outstanding A.Iniesta seemed a bit subdued, but each of his moments made everyone admire. That is why we unanimously chose him as the most valuable player of these matches.
The clash of the two giants ended in a draw. It is a natural result of a match between equal opponents on that day. Perhaps we criticized the Spaniards a bit more in this analysis, but they are to blame for raising the bar so high themselves.
It's hard to imagine what awaits us further in this championship if we already see such great matches!
