Fàbregas finally puts Italy out of their misery

It has taken 88 years for Spain to beat Italy in a competitive match and most of them appeared to pass before our eyes as the two nations played out a desperately disappointing quarter-final, enlivened only by the drama of a penalty shoot-out. It was won by Spain with the winning kick coming from Cesc Fàbregas, of Arsenal, a second-half substitute, after Daniele De Rossi and Antonio Di Natale had failed for Italy.

Penalties are a rotten way to decide any match, least of all one as significant as this, but for these teams we can make an exception. Frankly, they deserved little else. Luca Toni, Italy’s striker, did not even step up, which tells all you need to know.

So kudos to Fàbregas for holding his nerve, and to Iker Casillas, in Spain’s goal, for saving twice. The more ambitious team won, which is good, but this game served only one useful purpose, which was to remind us what a fine tournament this has been until now. If we were beginning to take the lovely, attacking football, and the fascinating narrative for granted, we apologise. Italy and Spain demonstrated what international football can be like: a dull, lifeless bore between two teams lacking in nerve and ambition. Some clever dicks may attempt to convince you that this was a fascinating tactical encounter and one for the purists, but do not be fooled.

Portugal against Germany was a fascinating tactical contest and so was Holland against Russia. This was a load of old rubbish and by far the poorest game of the tournament considering what was at stake and the talent on display. Here were two of the strongest teams in Europe, with combined professional talent that could be counted in the hundreds of millions, and they failed to achieve the basic point of the game for two hours. Any 0-0 draw is, by definition, a failure but on occasions there will be a team that is suited by the result. As both sets of players here had to win to progress, there is no mitigation for a contest as ordinary as this. They should have done better; it is as simple as that.

The strangest sight outside the Ernst Happel Stadion was groups of touts unable to sell spare tickets for the match, even at face value. This was, after all, the most eagerly anticipated of the quarter-finals, so to see blocks of empty seats at the Italian end was perplexing. Maybe the Azzurri loyalists had been wrong-footed by the world champions’ second-placed finish at the group stage; perhaps they were wandering forlorn around Basle where Holland, the group C winners, played on Saturday night. Let us hope they at least swallowed their pride and went to that match. They would have got a better night’s entertainment than anyone did here.

One of the hottest tickets in Vienna right now is for the Mel Brooks musical The Producers at the Ronacher Theatre and this game was very much like the line from Opening Night, the show’s first number. “We wanted to stand up and hiss,” one group of disgruntled theatregoers sings. “We’ve seen shit, but never like this,” another replies. Certainly the neutrals in the stadium could have been forgiven for echoing those sentiments. This competition has, with few exceptions such as the odd dead rubber and France against Romania, been uniformly excellent and drawn unanimously rave reviews. Different here, though, with both teams getting brickbats as they trooped off on four separate occasions, including extra time. Cagey, ragged, negative, with scant goalmouth action and more than a few attempts to con the referee, Herbert Fandel of Germany, it was the sort of game Euro 2008 has, so far, avoided.

For example, in the 71st minute, David Villa, the Spain striker now attracting so much Premier League chatter, attempted the most blatant penalty area dive of the tournament, earning a booking. Earlier, David Silva, Spain’s exciting wide midfield player, who has been key to so much of their best work at this tournament, had his foot caught by Fabio Grosso, the Italy full back, on the edge of the penalty area. It may have been a foul but so spectacular was Silva’s fall, rolling around and clutching his leg to imply the tackle had been high as well as mistimed, that Fandel showed only irritation and waved play on.

That the game went to a shoot-out is no shock because it was heading that way from the start. Italy, shorn of the suspended Andrea Pirlo’s creation in midfield, set out to win on the counter-attack with stout defence, but lacked the wit to carry off even that unambitious plan. Spain’s passing game simply failed them. Fabio Capello, the England manager, said that Luis Aragonés, the Spain coach, had the best midfield at the tournament, but it looked far from that here. Russia, against Holland, were in a different class, and there will be no repeat of the 4-1 scoreline that separated the teams in the first group game unless Spain improve. How ridiculous that the teams should have to meet again before the final anyway, but that is Uefa for you. It is one thing not being able to organise a jolly-up in a brewery, but one would hope that a football tournament in Europe would have been within its scope.

For pedants, a brief recap of the action over two hours would, for Italy, take in a header by Simone Perrotta that was easily saved, another from Toni that was blocked, a goalmouth scramble that ended with Casillas’s best stop in open play from Mauro Camoranesi and an extra-time header from Di Natale that was tipped over. For Spain, there was a Villa free kick saved, two shots from Silva that went close - one stopped, the other wide - and two efforts by Marcos Senna that caused problems for Gianluigi Buffon, in Italy’s goal, the second squirming from his hands on to a post.

In extra time, Silva and Santi Carzola came close, but edited highlights would not amount to the length of a Tom and Jerry cartoon, although those cat and mouse games had considerably greater entertainment value.

How they rated

Spain (4-4-2): I Casillas 8, Sergio Ramos 6, C Puyol 6, C Marchena 7, J Capdevila 6, A Iniesta Y 4, M Senna 7, Xavi Hernández 4, D Silva 7, D Villa Y 6, F Torres 5. Substitutes: S Cazorla 5 Y (for Iniesta, 59min), F Fàbregas 5 (for Xavi, 60), D Güiza 5 (for Torres, 85).

Italy (4-1-4-1): G Buffon 5, G Zambrotta 7, C Panucci 8, G Chiellini 8, F Grosso 6, D De Rossi 7, A Aquilani 7, M Ambrosini Y 6, S Perrotta 5, A Cassano 5, L Toni 4. Substitutes: M Camoranesi 6 (for Perrotta, 58min), A Di Natale 5 (for Cassano, 75), A Del Piero (for Aquilani, 108).

Referee: H Fandel
Attendance: 48,000

Taken from timesonline.co.uk