Quote:
Originally Posted by Locke
I think you're giving Italy a lot of credit for what could essentially be chocked up to luck.
How about not even making it out of the group stage at the last Euro despite being in a relatively easy group with Sweden, Denmark and Bulgaria and managing the only win against an uncompetitive Bulgarian side.
And even further back, barely managing to squeak out of the group stage at the 2002 World Cup again managing only one win in the entire tournament. Against Ecuador, only to be immediately knocked out by Korea.
I dont share the optimism for Italy at this tournament, I thought they were incredibly fortunate to win the World Cup rather than good. Further, most of the players from that squad havent looked that good for their clubs since.
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Italy, like all teams, have good and bad tournaments. You mentioned the ones they struggled in but they had strong starts in 1998 and 2000 but fell short. They got knocked out of 3 consecutive world cups in shootouts.
They have had many heartbreaks so finally they got some luck on their side and won in 2006.
They are still very difficult to breakdown. Teams will still have trouble scoring on them.