The Euro 2012 thread

[lestatdark]

freebs2 said:

lestatdark said:
Italy's out of subs in the 55th minute...and for Thiago Motta? Prandelli's lost it.

You nailed it, when I saw the substitution I said "We have lost."

Also Chiellini has been like a disease. We would have lost anyway, but Prandelli did a pretty poor managment for this final. We had a couple of better players in a better condition, like Nocerino.

I think Prandelli didn't look into the team's physical aspect as he should have. Chiellini was already showing some signs that he was close to an injury back on the game against Germany and some players were pretty tired. 

Still, his management of the subs was pretty damn bad. Doing the last sub when there was still 35 minutes to play, against a team that's known to tire out their opposition by making them run for the ball, especially when they're in front of the scoreline, it's almost a suicidal call.

@Naninho - Personally, my favourite portuguese player in the 90 minutes was Moutinho, mostly because he bossed the midfield and he was one of the prime reasons Xavi and Iniesta didn't do much (though Pepe was a pretty close second to me). And I agree, once Xavi was subbed, Spain found much more depth in the field, because our midfield was pretty tired and Bento was too stubborn to sub them out (even when we had two subs to make) to keep the pace. Without Veloso and Meireles to help Moutinho, and Nani completely oblivious when he had to accompany Jordi Alba's runs on the right wing, we ended up opening massive spaces on that part of the field.