The Fan

Italy dump out hosts in game of the tournament

The Editor — Wed, July 5th 2006

Italy 2 - Germany 0

After a raft of uninspired knock-out phase matches, the hosts Germany and Italy fought out one of the most exciting semi-finals of all time, and restored the reputation of the World Cup.

Two Italian goals in the last minutes of extra-time prevented the game from going to penalties - a fate an exhausted German team looked like they desired since the end of 90 minutes.

Italy belied expectations of a defensive performance by taking Germany on at their own game, sweeping forward through the midfield with great skill and pace.

Despite both teams attacking intentions chances were at a mininum with both defences performing exceptionally. All defenders from Germany and Italy were faultless throughout the night and often provided much of the attacking endeavour. Cannavaro, for me the player of the tournament, was exceptional - as close to a perfect game that I have ever seen.

The spirit and attitiude shown also lifted the cloud thrown over the World Cup by performances of Holland, Portugal and Argentina. Here were two teams who would give anything to win, but never descended into cheating or petulance. Players picked each other up after fouls and didn’t roll over or dive; there were no pretended cards waved at the referee (who also helped) to try and incite bookings.

Germany and Italy can both be proud of playing in this game. It was a game worthy of being the final.

Listed in: Competitions, World Cup, Countries, Germany, Italy

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