Who Will be in the Italy Starting Eleven today?

Italy-Paraguay is without a doubt the juciest matchup of today's World Cup 2010 matches. The defending champions take the field with a great deal of uncertainty surrounding their efforts and of course the starting 11 they'll put on the field.

Much like Fabio Capello's mysterious starting lineup, especially in goal, the Italians aren't really sure who will take the field today against the South American challengers. Only one player, defender Gianluca Zambrotta, has started all of Italy's warmup matches prior to the tournament, and even he's not sure what's going on in Marcello Lippi's mind.

"We don't know if this means he hasn't decided, it just means he hasn't told us."

Never mind player, Lippi apparently can't settle on a formation. He's played 4-2-3-1 to 4-3-3 to a number of other combinations that would make any craps player's head spin. Plus he's dealing with an injured Andrea Pirlo and shaky mix of aging veterans and youngsters.

Serie A Talk took a stab at a Starting Eleven for Italy. I think they're close. What do you think?

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Spirit of Euro 2008 Sapped by Italy-Holland Referee

Day 3 of Euro 2008 will long be remembered as the day when common sense took the day off.

Swedish referee Peter Frojdfeldt played by the letter of the law and allowed Ruud Van Nistelrooy's offside goal to stand yesterday, sending Holland to an historic 3-0 win over Italy. Notice the use of "letter of the law." He would have been better served observing the spirit of FIFA regulation 11:11, and then ignoring it altogether.

The first Dutch goal yesterday left the Azzurri seeing Oranje. Italy never recovered, conceding two more tallies, including a textbook counterattack tally by Wesley Sneijder. Sneijder, however, had the easiest leg of that relay race, converting a precious Dirk Kuyt header pass and completing a play that started nearly 100 meters earlier when defender Giovanni van Bronckhorst cleared a sure Italy goal off the line and ultimately delivered the pass to Kuyt at the other end of the pitch. Fittingly, van Bronckhorst closed it out 10 minutes from the finish with a header for the 3-0 final.

Overshadowing the storyline of Italy being handed its worst loss in a major tournament since the 1970 World Cup final, the offside call by Frojdfeldt is the first controversial moment of the tournament. The call too allow the goal dictated that Italy change tack away from its defense-first tendencies. It also opened a groundswell for new interpretation and evaluation of rule 11:11.

The reg, a mere five years old, was put into place to prevent players from intentionally stepping out of bounds to create an offside situation. Therefore, players off the field are active, and technically, Van Nistelrooy was onside. But let's look at the play. Defender Christian Panucci and goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon collided, sending the ball bounding in play and Panucci a few feet beyond the touchline in a heap. It wasn't intentional. It wasn't malicious. Panucci wasn't begging for a foul or a stretcher. It happened in the run of play and Frojdfeldt should have the sack to observe the situation and rule Van Nistelrooy offside.

As Martin Samuel wrote in the Times of London today:

And it was from that prone position, not even watching the action, that [Panucci] was somehow judged to have played Ruud van Nistelrooy onside and allowed him to score one of the most controversial goals in tournament history. Not because it was indisputably illegal, for it was quickly established that, despite Italy’s ire, Holland’s first goal was within the new rules as so interpreted by Fröjdfeldt, but because it was so daft, so wrong, so clearly a mistake, that it should have been scrapped on commonsense grounds. Yet when was clarity of thought last on nodding acquaintance with the offside laws? Not for some time. Maybe this will spark a re-evaluation.

The goal and the outcome are a shocking statement on the state of refereeing in the game when a contender in a major tournament is in arrears because of a shoddy decision. Why would Frojdfeldt choose to resurrect this rule at this moment? Had UEFA briefed its referees pre-tournament to be mindful of such situations and strictly enforce the letter of the law?

Granted, a 3-0 final indicates bigger issues with the Azzurri, such as the loss of Fabio Cannavaro to injury, which did plenty to cripple at the very least, the stability of the Italy back line. But the fact that Peter Frojdfeldt's name has been typed here more often than the players people buy tickets to see, proves something was rotten in Berne yesterday. Good referees are like Hollywood actors, you know the ones: the strong silent types. If you know a ref's name, you know too much about him.

Here's hoping this is the last time we have to write about an officiating decision in this tournament. Granted, I'd rather write about this than France's performance against Romania yesterday.

Euro 2008 Draw Analysis: Group of Death

Waking up early was worth it Sunday morning. Not necessarily because the Euro 2008 draw was sitting there waiting for me on ESPN2, but mere for the entertainment value of watching eight grown men swirl hollow soccer balls about a bowl and pull out the names and group placements of the 16 Euro finalists.

When you see watch these things, it's difficult not to by cynical. When the balls are emptied and you see suspicion manifested as hosts Austria are paired with Germany and Switzerland paired with Turkey. Austria isn't long for the tournament, but gets its glory day with Germany for the sake of the tournament. Same goes for the Swiss, its gets a rematch on home soil with Turkey; remember Turkey players attacking the Swiss during a World Cup qualifier two years ago?

Then we get a legitimate Group of Death. Granted, with 16 teams, it's difficult not to get some juicy pairings, but c'mon: Netherlands, France AND Italy? Italy and France, for some reason, are conjoined at the touch line. Roberto Donadoni said it flat-out: "I had a feeling it would turn out this way." And Holland, well Holland is always in the Group of Death. Remember last year's World Cup: Argentina, Holland, Ivory Coast and Serbia.

This is excess at its best--or is it worst? Rather, well, I'll say it: this is rigged. It's well thought out, well planned and well executed. I don't buy the luck-of-the-draw explanations. I won't swallow that Dino Zoff wasn't a pawn in UEFA's game! No, no, no. There's a master plan at work here.

France opens against Romania and Italy tangles with Holland. France then gets Holland, while Italy has its turn against Romania, setting up the World Cup final rematch between Italy and France. Thank God this game cannot go to penalty kicks! Anyone seen Zizou? If the game's lacking any drama, maybe France can pry the gifted one out of retirement.

BigSoccer: Society, not Soccer to Blame

BigSoccer cuts to the chase on hooliganism in Italy. Social woes and not football are the root cause of hooliganism, and on many levels they're correct. Not to get too liberal-PC-boorish, but when there's little to connect you in life to something outside of a dead-end job and worse, a going-nowhere life, you sometimes seek out others just like you and unite under a single cause. Unfortunately, hooligans do it under the banner of a football club or national side, and ravage what's in their way.

Here's an interesting passage from the BigSoccer post:

Specifically, what provoked the anger of ultras groups last Sunday was not only the killing of "one of them" (never mind that the kid was not an ultra nor by anyone's definition a violent or anti-social element of society), but the fact that authority figures from both the Italian federation and police determined that the "show must go on" and games would be played as if nothing happened. When a police officer died (in a friendly fire incident?) in February 2007, the league was stopped and a huge national period of mourning came about. Here was the case of a fan, one of "them" - again, as perceived by exremist groups - being killed and the league was to go on as scheduled. As if his death was insignificant. "Death is the same for all" a banner would go on to read in Parma, a more civilized expression of the frustration felt by many fans, and a pun on the Italian legal motto which states "the law is the same for all." But by allowing games to be played, the ultras saw this as a case of "the system" not giving a shit about "one of them," treating them rather as second class citizens, something which these extremist groups are used to feeling.

So much for today's lesson in Sociology 101.

Serie A on Borrowed Time?

A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to the Inter-Lazio game last weekend in Italy. A Lazio supporter was murdered--accidentally--by a policeman touching off a terrible night of violence in Italy and plummeting Calcio back into the abyss.

The wounds of the bribery scandal that sent Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina to Serie B and stripped other top clubs of points in the standings still sting. And now this terrible tragedy compounds things to new depths.

But this tragedy has nothing to do with the inner workings of football. There was no match-rigging conspiracy at play here. There was no network of club officials pulling strings to ensure favorable refereeing at their matches. This was the case of an officer pulling the trigger on an innocent man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Gabriele Sandri's biggest crime was stopping for gas nearby where Lazio and Juventus supporters were slugging away at each other in a fit of testosterone rage over club and country.

So who's to blame. Well, Michel Platini is pointing a finger at the Italian government. He says they need to step in much the way the English did to clean up hooliganism at clubs. Sandri's death was the second football-related death in Italy this year. Enough.

"(Platini's) view is that soccer is not to blame, nor the majority of real Italian soccer fans, but it is a minority of extremists who take over fans clubs and are not interested in football who are to blame. The Italian authorities need to clean up these supporters clubs, otherwise the small minority is going to continue to ruin the game for the majority of Italian supporters who are terrific fans of the game," says William Gaillard, special adviser to Platini.

Right now, local authorities essentially act as security at stadia in Italy and Platini would like to see it centralized. Football is critical to the economy of Italy and it needs to be policed with the highest of scrutiny. Dedicated training of authorities is required, much the way the English handle it.

It's time for Italy to rein in this "small minority" of fans. If the Italian government cannot handle it, get help from the EU. Football is a pastime, but it's a financial, social and cultural center as well. Grown men do no weep when the dollar falls against the Euro, but they do if Roma falls to Lazio. That emotional attachment is why fans adore football. To have it ruined by selfish pigs with an evil agenda is evil itself.

Live Blogging: Fox Football Fone-In, part II

• They've got a poll going tonight on whether Italy should shut down Serie A this weekend in light of last weekend's tragic shooting at the Lazio-Juventus game. More analysis in the morning on the shattered state of Italian soccer, but right now, those polled don't want to shut it down. It's 7-3 now; and most are saying there would be mayhem in the streets if the games were off. Poll ended up 8-7 in favor of no.
  
• Here we go again, trying to drag MLS and American football into a conversation about creating a global brand around soccer here. Why would any club in Europe be interested in a North America-Europe version of the Champions League? Bulletin: Europe doesn't need North America to sell is football; doing just fine boys. Is anyone in Europe wondering about the L.A. Galaxy and David Beckham's injuries? MLS is fun, but as Stephen just said, it's a third-tier league. Kudos to American fans to want to equate their league and clubs with the best Europe has, but they're not there yet.
• Mr. Gullitt: Welcome to the MLS SuperDraft. Huh? I want to see his face.
  
• Rogers is convinced Landon Donovan is headed back to San Jose to the new MLS franchise. Adds: Donovan won't get another sniff from a European club. "He's blown his chances." Donovan, meanwhile, was not called up for Saturday's friendly against South Africa.
  
• Tim Cahill's bicycle kick was better than Taylor Twellman's.
• Alex McLeish leaving Scotland for the Premiership? Discuss.
• Dreadful discussion about the bottom of the Premiership table Derby bashing is passe.