ANDY F'N GRAY

Duncan! · ANDY F'N GRAY

Who is this pr!ck!!!! ESPN hired him for the EURO's and in todays game it was sooooo obvious he hates Italy with a passion. Every thing the Italians did was dirty, we cheat, Spain are great, look at all the great Premiership players, etc, etc.

F!ckin d!ckweed!!!!!

Macxz

Welcome to our world Duncan...

This is the kind of anti -Italian vitriol we have to suffer every time an Italian team national or League is broadcast. And its probably worse on Sky (where Gray is a pundit) and ITV..

Andy Gray is a Scot who internationally is a nobody, played for a couple of clubs in England and won a cup winners cup medal which proabaly qualifies him to talk about international football......

was going to say a bit like Andy Townsend but at least he was selected by Ireland to play in their world cup squads.. unlike Gray..

Sir George

I know it didn't stop Ray Houghton, but I think the fact Gray is Scottish counted against him on that one.

Andy Gray is something of an ignoramus I agree, but I'm puzzled as to why anybody would object to people pointing out that the Italian team's performance last night was dire. Anti-football in every way. It's almost as puzzling as folk complaining when other folk point out the rampant corruption in Italian football.

Di Natale's antics in particular were comically typical of the Italian approach last. I.e. He pretends to be injured by theatrically rolling over a few times and then, when he realises he's actually rolled off the pitch, starts rolling back the other way so that the ref will stop the game. Booooo, hissssss I was delighted to see him miss the decisive penalty. Saved Del Piero the bother of doing it....

Italy 2006 were the worst team to win the World Cup. It was an unusually poor standard of competition and they got the breaks when they needed them. Any one of 10 equally mediocre teams could have won the competition. The downside for Italy was that they were fooled into thinking they actually had a good team and weren't in fact in need of a complete overhaul.

Giovanni Lavafiume

I agree entirely. It was one of the dullest and most negative Italian performances I've seen. And bearing in mind the otherwise excellent quality of football in this great tournament, it stuck out like a pus-filled sore thumb. It is getting to the point where I might just stop watching Italy matches. Call me old fashioned but I actually like goals.

Bracey

So Italy were one of the poorest teams to win the world cup? If they're that bad then surely setting out to stop Spain playing is all they could have done. For such a bad team, they did a pretty good job on Villa, Torres, Silva and Fabregas. What does everyone expect? That they should roll over and die in order to give the pundits their Torres-Fabregas-Premiership orgy?

I think most people would agree that Spain are a better team than Italy, therefore how they played last night was the only way possible.

Furthermore, nobody forces anyone to watch Italy matches. Don't like-don't watch seems reasonable.

Sir George, perhaps one of ten other teams could have won the world cup but that's irrelevant. If winning the world cup is bad because it stops you planning for the future then you'll never win anything. If Euro 2008 acts as a wake-up call for a decent defence of the World Cup then it will have served a purpose.

Curva Fiesole

Germany in 1990 must be the worst team to ever win a World Cup, Italy's performances in 2006 were far better than anything Germany produced at Italia 90, and Brazil in 2002 were little better.

Mezz

I know it's diverting from the subject a little, but that game between Germany and Italy in 2006 was absolutely legendary.

End to end all match, nothing but attacking football, and most likely the defining moment of Italy's tournament.

Fantastico.

Sir George

Yes, Italy were very good against Germany and deserved to win. The rest of Italy's performances were pretty awful from memory, although the nature of their quarter final eludes me. Old age. or mental atrophy brought on by sitting through too many Italy matches? You decide.

The Brazil team of 2002 was excellent. Anybody who fails to enjoy the attacking play of Ronaldinho, Ronaldo and Rivaldo has been watching too many Franco Baresi Finest Scythes videos.

Italy died without a wimper. Bracey talks of Spain as if they're some sort of super team, and blanket defence was the only option. In fact, Spain's weakness is their back 4, but dismally, Italy showed no inclination to exploit that. Everybody would have agreed that Holland were a better team than Russia before the latter had a pop at them and wrested the initiative. As did Italy against Germany in 2006.

And Di Natale's antics alone justified whatever anti-Italian tirades Andy Gray came out with.

nino

Well yes I guess if you keep making ignorant remarks about a nation eventually one person might justify all the rubbish you spout.
It was a dismal outing by the Azzurri this year. And yes, Italy had no excuse putting up that display against a better team man for man when Russia showed how to go about things the right way against a form team. But let's not act like this is the same Italy that won the World Cup and everybody else was just as bad just without the lucky breaks.

Duncan!

It wasnt just him complaining about Italy's play, but the overall hatred in it for the Italians was easy to spot.

When the Spanish did the same thing, not a word. Just fawning over Torres, Fabregas, etc....

@ss Dumpling!!!

Sir George

Presumably somebody who didn't "hate" Italy would have been fawning over Luca Toni and Ambrosini. He would have lauded the Italians for finally producing an answer to the Cruyff Turn. i.e. The Di Natale Double Roll (try it at home kids!), and he would have praised the never-say-die fighting spirit of an Italian team whose players are virtaully amateurs and no match for the highly paid Spanish all stars. Maybe in a parallel universe Duncan, one in which Barcelona v Man Utd is regarded as "boring" and a game with no shots has the crowd in raptures.

badman

Sorry to say sir george, but you find yourself on the "dark side of the net" as you would like it to be known... May I recommend a Premiership, or maybe an "All hail underachievers" Forum?

The fact of the matter is, that while italy was hopeless in attack, their subdued all of Spains attacking "Might"

All I can hope is that Russia finally exploit the weakness of spain's so called defence...

PS. I think Spain had the lowest percentage of shot accuracy I have seen in the tournament in that game... hopeless....

Sir George

Spain had the lowest percentage of "shot accuracy"? Interesting. I'm not sure how you measure accuracy of shooting Badman, but from reading the papers, it looked like Spain had 4 accurate shots and Italy 2. It's a confusing game.

flotron

Perhaps George needs a maths lesson.

Shot accuracy would be calculated by dividing number of shots on target by the total number of shots * 100

Spain = 6 shots on target / 21 shots * 100 = 28.6 % of shots on target

Italy = 3 shots on target / 8 shots * 100 = 37.5 % of shots on target

George, you made me do it

I really don't remember that many shots but the stats are from the official euro 2008 site...

Sir George

I did realise the point Badman was making re stats. I just didn't think it a point worth making. But since you went to so much trouble getting the stats I'll explain.....the bleedin' obvious.

Isn't the idea of football to score a goal and therefore miss the goalie? You and your chums at the official Euro2008 site count shots that dribble into the keeper's hands as "accurate". Old-fashioned soul that I am I regard shots hit into the net as "accurate" while a miss is a miss, whether missing the post or whether giving the goalie the opportunity to make a save. The importance of "hitting the target", "making the keeper work" and other golden rules so beloved of Shearer, Andy Gray, the official Euro2008 site and yourself are just more meaningless bits of drivel in a football world full of them.

Using your definition, Italy's penalties were as "accurate" as Spain's because they all "hit the target". Di Natale and Di Rossi didn't miss. They hit accurate shots! Forza Italia!

Bracey

You seem to forget that whilst it's about making the net bulge at one end, it's as much about preventing it from doing so at the other.

And whilst we're on the point, weren't England's previous two tournament defeats the result of negative tactics? A dreadful 0-0 in Gelsenkirchen and a defeat in Lisbon when they crossed the halfway line three times in the second half. The thing that just makes Italy seem worse is that they're better at it.

Quite right about meaningless stats, however. We all know there's one that matters and that is usually displayed in the top left-hand corner of your TV screen during a game. Perhaps this helps Italy's case when it only takes one goal to win a game.

Duncan!

Andy Gray is taking a lot of criticism here about his commentary of the game. I forgot to mention how he wished good luck over the air for the Spanish penalty takers.
Truly deplorable for a supposed neutral calling of a game.

Sorry George , but thats the way it is. He is taking a lot of heat and so is ESPN at the moment. Who by the way, are owned by Disney, the epitomy of "political correctness"

Liam

While I feel there's an anti-Italian bias in the media over here, I also agree with George. Italy were poor. As I said in the Euro 2008 thread they were lucky they only had to beat a poor France with 10-men to reach the quarter-finals. Then in the quarter finals Donadoni was unable to strike a balance between defence and attack and ended up going out. Spain didn't quite do enough to win the game in normal time, but neither did Italy, and Spain's better penalties won in the end.

Stats mean nothing whether you win or lose. I recall us having to tell Ronaldo9 enough times when he kept saying Spain's pass percentage was higher than Greece's.

Bobo32

Aqualani makes me laugh. Italy did nothing more than Spain to win the match apparantly. hahah..
How about over the tournament?
ITaly = dire
Spain = Great.

Oh hmmm. I wonder who deserved to go through. Eejit

Curva Fiesole

It was interesting how two teams adopted different tactics to supress the attacking qualities of the opposition. Italy reverted to type and played ultra defensively, whereas Russia stopped Holland by pushing their full backs forward to stop the Dutch.

As a neutral, I know which game I enjoyed the most and the team I'm now hoping go on to win the tournament. It's frustrating that the Italians have the players who could have adopted the same approach but chose not to, giving all anti-Italian pundits (and forum members) the perfect opportunity to complain about typical Italian tactics.

Duncan - you had Andy Gray, we had Alan Shearer, who moaned about the long ball up to Toni - exactly the same tactic that England used when Shearer led the England line!

®osa

Sir George

I'm no fan of England Bracey, but my memory of England tournaments isn't quite the same as yours. England's problem is that, for all their midfield running, they are totally bereft of creative players. I don't think they were particularly negative in the last 2 tournaments. In the last Euros they banged in loads of goals in the group stages and I thought were a tad unlucky to go out to the hosts after an entertaining 2-2 draw (with Rooney at his peak gettnig crocked early on). They were inept in the world cup but not especially defensive. They were actually the better team after Rooney was sent off, with little Aaron Lennon charging up and down the right wing like a dervish.

Somebody suggested we should remember Holland v Italy at Euro2000 earlier on. Not entirely sure why and I'd rather not, but obviously Italy's ultra-defensiveness was more excusable on that occasion as they had a player sent off early doors (for being a total chump if memory serves). Not Zambrotta was it?

Bobo32

Yeh but Italy deserved to go out in the QF. No complaints. Italy were dreadful. Id rather they have gone out with France (my team...who were even worse than Italy...and thats saying something) iin the group stage and given plucky Romania a chance to explore the latter stages...

Bring back Lippi?
I think so.

Funny that Italy and France had such appalling managers (I'd limit the blame to be apportioned on each squad...in terms of quality there wasnt a problem).
Hmm..