Who does play there for the Italian NT at the moment? Cassani?

Maggio, Cassini as a sub.

Some good games tomorrow: Brazil vs Germany and Italy vs Spain.

Hopefully Italy don't get hammered, I'm yet to see a substantial imrpovement under Prandelli, at least not against strong opponents

1-0 italy montilovo good goal scored.. .and cassano looking good as well... buffon and pirlo playing but cassano is the captain strange

My point exactly He's one of the most important players in that set-up, no matter what Prandelli says

1-1

2nd injury for spain first torres now pique

it was the strangest penalty i've ever seen given...

HT 1-1 Italy played really well and i think milan should workon cassano's fitness he can be really important for us..

my stream stopped so didnt see it

Really? damn!! I hate it when refs give stronger sides soft penalties

Both Slovenia and Italy playing well so far...

well my feed didn't show anything but Chiellini going down hard and LLorente jumping in the air with a puzzled look... it was weak, it didn't even look like there was contact

Italy have been the better team, it was obvious and imo, it's what really matters, the result doesn't really have any value since it's a friendly, but Italy are showing some good progress.

Montolivo's goal was pure class, and the Cassano/Rossi combo is killing them on the wings when that long ball is launched.

Like I said, we need both Montolivo and to keep Cassano + another mid if we want to be competitive

Schweinsteiger pen 1-0 Germany.

2-0 Germany, this Brazil side ...

how r the milan players doing

Pato looks fairly lively, Robinho has been involved in and out...

Hang on, penalty.

Robinho scores, 2-1.

Silva hasn't done too bad, though the Brazil defence as a whole isn't great. Oh, and Ganso has just come on.

Make that 3-1, acid is going to be mad.

Italy seem to have lost the plot after all the changes

Just after posting that, Aquilani scores

Man, we really need to get both the scorers for our midfield

Neymar makes it 3-2, good 2nd half after a relatively slow 1st one.

3rd 3-2 game on the bounce I've seen too, lets keep that going throughout the season!

Yep,specially for that price+they're italian!

Either Sergio Busquets is rubbish as CB or Balotelli is immensely talented.

Both, Busquets is no CB, so obviously he would struggle playing there, while Balo is very talented but crazy in the head, which imo, will hold his carreer back in the future. Just like Cassano

Tell me about it, man. I turned my stream off just before the penalty and dozed off. Ha!

Watching Germany I have to conclude that Mario Götze is one of the few young talents I'm willing to bet he's worthy all the fuss and will become great (if something unpredictable does not happen). Milan with Götze would be a sweet dream.

As for Brazil...well, actually, Menezes proved Dunga wasn't so bad, or better - wasn't the worst. More then 40 players tested, making some mistakes over and over again, no real creativity in midfield...he's a bad NT coach, I'm sure of it. But - not all the blame should go on him. While Thiago works hiss @ss off every single time I see him, and even Robinho finds the net and takes an effort to look good, Pato once more disappears. Once again he proved to me how unstable and inconsistent he is.

*waiting for Zed reply*

Lol,the forum is full of sarcasm today,nice

USA-Mexico final of 1-1. Jurgen Klinsmann's first game as head of coach for USA. The first half was a little rough from a USA perspective but we improved through out the match and dominated a bit over the last 30 mins. Klinsmann was shuffling a lot of new and young guys in the line up and a couple looked good. I really liked Brek Shea's energy and attacking and link up instincts. He's only 21 and looks to have a great future ahead of him. Juan Agudelo also looked good. At 18 he may be the solution to our dearth of good strikers. Robbie Rogers was also good. Love the speed for counters. All in all I'm optimistic for the future. I love Jurgen's energy and I hope he teaches our young guys the winning pedigree that he showed so often in his career.

I'm incredibly optimistic, we looked good in the second half. If only we could get decent referees. I'm not even being bias that display was pathetic.

Yea, the foul of Rogers breakaway was one of the most blatant red cards I've ever seen. If it wasn't a friendly I'd be super pissed.

Is there really something to reply? We all like Pato, but if we wanna be optimistic, we must agree that one of his characteristics is that he's able to play a great game and for example score 2 goals in one match, and then just a few days after totally disappear in another. That's becoming very annoying, one cannot rely on him.

Buffon let cassano waer he captain armband as the game was in Bari

Sarcasm bro.

But,very true,what you said.

cassano actually had a really good shift. My thinking to the Cassano debate is he's a good a player who will be ok with the bench as we can find. He's said plenty of times he is happy here and with a newborn, i'm sure he will enjoy not playing so intensively...

Good point.

Scotland comfortable victors over Denmark 2-1. First win over them since the 70s.

This team might actually be improving under Levein.

Called up players for Italy:

Portieri: Buffon (Juventus), De Sanctis (Napoli) Sirigu (Paris St. Germain);
Difensori: Astori (Cagliari), Balzaretti (Palermo), Bonucci (Juventus) Cassani (Fiorentina), Chiellini (Juventus), Criscito (Zenit St. Pietroburgo), Maggio (Napoli), Ranocchia (Inter);
Centrocampisti: Aquilani (Milan), De Rossi (Roma), Marchisio (Juventus), Montolivo (Fiorentina), Motta Thiago (Inter), Nocerino (Palermo), Pirlo (Juventus);
Attaccanti: Balotelli (Manchester City), Cassano (Milan), Gilardino (Fiorentina), Giovinco (Parma), Pazzini (Inter), Rossi (Villarreal).

Still cannot understand how he could leave Abate behind

Agreed. I don't understand that at all. Does he really rate some one like Cassani or Criscito higher than Abate? Absolutely no justification for not calling Abate in my mind.

Me neither. And why still hang on Gilardino?


Sounds/looks so strange

Criscito is better IMO, but Cassani isn't. It's just that Cassani is an average but classic fullback.

And Criscito and Abate play different sides anyway. Criscito call up makes perfect sense. Good left-back.

I hope Azzurri plays with Rossi + Cassano in attack again. They do very well together.

Abate > Criscito IMO.

That doesn't really matter since one is a RB and the other a LB

His competition is Maggio, and imo Abate is better. That might be a biased observation on my part though

I don't think so. It's plain obvious that Abate is the best Italian RB at the moment, and it's completely incomprehensible how Prandelli keeps ignoring him.

Yeah, what's with the Abate vs Criscito battle? Both should start.

Personally, I prefer Balzaretti to Criscito.

Some coaches are just too stubborn. In addition to Abate, Abbiati should be there too.