July 30, 2006
July 12, 2006
Ciao
Marcello Lippi is stepping down as the Italy coach.
I’ve got to say, we’ll miss him. The man brought Italian football back to its core - brilliant attacking football on the back of a rock solid defense.
Throughout the entire tournament he made attacking substitutions and Italy always played attacking football. I had to put up with BBC commentary constantly predicting a “sit back and defend” style football, any time Italy scored a goal they’d say how boring the game would be and then Lippi would bring on Del Piero, Iaquinta and Inzaghi. Always attacking, always looking for that extra goal.
Italy didn’t play one game in that tournament of “negative football”. Even the final - we scored the only goal in open play and unfortunately our substitutions weakened our midfield to the extent that we let Viera and Zidane control the second half - if Lippi had wanted Italy to sit back and defend he wouldn’t have subbed on Del Piero and Iaquinta! Italy never played for penalties - don’t forget, before the glories of Sunday we’d crashed out of numerous competitions on penalties, not least the 94 World Cup Final (Boy did that ever suck).
In short, we played the best football in the tournament. The idiots who claim otherwise are the ones who still see the ghosts of 2002 and 2004 not the brilliant play of Lippi’s Azzurri.
In his short time as manager Marcello Lippi has left a great footballing heritage for his successor to follow - nurture an attacking game and Italy will continue to shine as a dominant force in football. There will never come a time when Italians bemoan their lack of quality defenders or be in dire need of a good Goalkeeper, if we concentrate on playing attacking football we can win Europe 2008 and the World Cup in 2010.
A great World Cup and a great team to watch. Grazie Marcello!
Later
John
July 11, 2006
Government Ministers strap on thinking caps, a pair
According to the BBC, the government is making preparations to back a new series of Nuclear Powerplants in the UK. About sodding time.
Half the opposition to Nuclear power seems to come from idealistic wooly-headed environmentalists and the other half from people who don’t understand science.
The environmentalists point to renewable power like wind and solar energy as the solution. This would be the preferable option if it were, indeed an option. I personally love the idea of renewable energy, it’s a keeper and something for the future.
However, in the here and now, massive batteries of wind turbines (the most reliable generators) would cost so much to run and install that the average British electricity bill would rise by 500%. With energy prices already high that’s just not an option.
In addition to which, the reliability of renewable energy sources is a massive factor which its proponents seem keen to ignore. Energy from turbines and solar panels is unreliable and tends to come in bursts, that spells disaster for a national grid of our size.
I would love to see renewable energy sources which are capable of meeting 100% of our energy requirements but they’re just not going to appear in the next 5 years.
Then we have the idiot section.
Chernobyl proved what could happen with an old style fission reactor and incompetent employees. Fortunately today we don’t use reactors that bear any resemblance to the reactor in Chernobyl.
The new reactors would be pebble bed reactors which are physically incapable of melting down. Further nuclear waste has such a small ecological impact if disposed of safely that it’s a joke. Blinky the three eyed mutant carp from the Simpsons is a straw fish.
The people who are opposed to pebble bed reactors on grounds of them being “dangerous” are the same idiots who say we should pursue nuclear engines for space flight because and I quote from a forum “we don’t want to dump radiation in space”.
What the hell people… Just… What the hell. Space is frikkin saturated with radiation from those giant gamma torches we call stars.
Anyhow. Efficient, Powerful and Safe.
No amount of fearmongering is going to stop this one guys, go home and take a frikkin shower, m’kay?
Sorry for the polemics, I just hate hippies.
Viva la fission! Viva la fusion!
Later
John
July 09, 2006
CAMPIONE DEL MONDO? SIAMO NOI!!
SI SI SI SI SI!
Can’t believe Zidane ended such a brilliant career like that. Even so! THAT MAKES UP FOR 1994!!!
L’ITALIA SE DESTA!!!
Later
Gianluigi
(A fatto, non l’usato mio nome Italiano per questo Blog - adesso lo’sai!)
July 04, 2006
SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!
Best game of football I’ve EVER watched. Even if Germany had won it’d be the same. Absolutely a TEXTBOOK example of why football is the beautiful game.
Del Piero getting a goal is just the icing on the cake.
Congratulations Germany! Forza Italia!
We’re going to the finals!
Later
John
July 03, 2006
Owie...
Ah well, the life of the England supporter eh?
Treat yourself to a Christiano Ronaldo animation.
Oh and FALCON PUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNCH!
1) When did Captain Falcon get his own Anime series?
2) Captain Falcon, ‘falcon punching’ some guy so hard that he explodes the galaxy is freaking hilarious.
All that time I thought Super Smash Brothers were overestimating that guy, turns out his signature move’s been accurately transfered to the video game all these years.
Later
John