Other than italian supporters ,everyone else seems to hate defense .I for one love it .I admire the greatness of Maldini ,the way he can tackle by taking out the ball without getting fouled or Nesta's great man marking that he is so good at or even cannavaro who blocks many shots .What is wrong with that .By the way what is wrong having a team play defense ,is it illegal or something ?If a team can defend ,well thats good ,they should use that in order to win games cause that is italy's strenght .If you saw todays game ,you must admire the way the defense prevented those dutch strikers Kluivert and Bergkamp from scoring .Secondly ,why did Holland deserve to win the game???So they possessed the ball so much,but it doesnt mean anything ,they couldnt have a clear shot at goal and they were awful with their crosses .It doesnt mean that a team deserve to win the game because of their possession ,if a team cant score ,then you cant win and Holland didnt have many chances except for those 2 penalty shots .

I know you're a Italia fan, but stop saying crap."Holland didn't have any chances?" What are you talking about. All holland did is attack. They had so many great chances. Also If italy play that boring "norway" kind of game, they will never win against france. They didn't have any chances today against holland. Don't get me wrong, I like italia very much, but you got to stop talking crap.

If italy plays attacking football, It should be a great final!!

Paolo Rossi: Do you get to see European games on tv where you live? You said in another post that you lived in Montreal. Is the tv coverage of soccer better there? All we get where I live is a couple MLS games a week and women's soccer. Do you get games on regular tv without having a satellite?

P.S. what is your favorite team in Serie A? Who do you pick to be good for next season and why?

Here they showed all Euro2000 games for free on TSN and yes I do watch serie A ,they show it here ,but I have to get up at 8:00 am to see it cause it is in the afternoon in Italy .Btw ,what I meant by Holland not having chances is the fact that the italian defense closed down so well on them ,Holland didnt find any space to get a clear shot except for the bergkamp shot in the first half .

PS. I dont have satellite but they show serie A and euro2000 on cable here .The reason why we have all this is cause there a lot of italians here .Every sundays ,Bars always packed just to see a serie A match .Btw,my fav team is Juventus ,because they r the one providing many italian players over the years(ex;R.Baggio,D.Baggio,S.Schillacci,Bettega,Zo ff etc..)

cuz it's boring.

Defence is boring if u want to have fun watching a football game, so i think that catenaccio its a nice gamestyle only to the team that use it and wins with it. See, if all teams would play like Italy, i think that the sport would loose its basic essence, try to score a damn goal. I would prefer a thousand times to watch 5-5 exciting ties than 0-0 boring draws.
At least thats the way I feel about futbol.(and i like to presume that most ppl do too)

".If you saw todays game ,you must admire the way the defense prevented those dutch strikers Kluivert and Bergkamp from scoring ."
I do like your defender, Paulo POST, he made to brilliant goalscoring saves.

I agree with Goucho here, I'd much rather see Yugo and Slovenia play 3-3 than see Italy and Holland play 0-0

However if Italy had played offencive football this topic never would of occured and the thought of enjoying defensive football would have never crossed your mind.

i love soccer, no matter how its played.....sure a 0-0 game is more boring, but what would you do if you only had 10 players, attack??

Christos:

Actually yes, you can still attack. I was watching a special on Asian Football today and the final match of the President's cup in the United Arab Emirates was won by a team called Al Wahda, who lost an international Moroccan defender after his second bookable offense in the first half. They didn't back down, but kept on fighting throughout the game. It ended up tied at 1, but Al Wahda won with their keeper saving the last crucial penalty.

TeKNoS