Bloody hell, what happened? Italy, er, looked really good last night - and not just in the solid-at-the-back way they normally look good, but in a proper create-lots-of-chances way. Crazy. Turn your back on the World Cup for a few days of mourning and the footballing world is turned upside down.
And Totti had a great game.... predictable, really, after my embittered "overrated" comment earlier yesterday. But he still played well - a few of his through-balls were lovely, especially given how deep the German defence were sitting. Had to be precise and a lot of the time they were. That said, he is still a bit full of all this fancy-dannery - passes the ball with the outside of the foot a lot, or curling on the instep. Never just passes it. Which, on a day like yesterday, works a treat. Not the player of the tournament, mind.
Yes, a properly great game - the first one since Argentina beat Mexico, by my reckoning. (Was England vs. Portugal great for neutrals? I don't know. And I don't want to know.) Both teams went for it, Italy with far more success. In fact, their success is all the more remarkable given the fact that they started the match with Perrotta and Camoranesi (pictured) - two players who not only do I not particularly like, but I consider to be substandard international footballers.
As far as I can tell, Perrotta's job is to run forward and support the lone striker a lot, without ever looking like he's going to either create or finish a chance. Camoranesi, meanwhile, "gets his studs white" out on the touchline and aggravates the opposition with his sarcastic clapping, persistent play-acting, and a far too infrequently perfect first-touch. But with both of these players on the pitch, Italy still shat on Germany from a great height.
Pirlo and Gattuso: brilliant, brilliant players whom I admire very much. They deserve their own paragraph.
You could see the fear in the Italian players' game from the get-go - they knew that playing for a 0-0 would merely result in yet more penalty heartache as das Germans would obviously bang in 5 out of 5, 6 out of 6, whatever was necessary. As a result, last night's added 30 minutes was probably the best period of extra time since Ronnie Rosenthal scored that hat-trick - culminating in two beautiful goals. Grosso's is obviously crying out to be described as David Platt-esque, not only for it's last-minute-of-extra-time status but also because it involved pivoting on one leg and meeting the ball perfectly to send it into the far corner. And then Del Piero scored after Gilardino performed a back-heel that would have surely sent Toni tumbling had he tried a similar trick. Great finish to a great match.
With regards to the play-acting/nasty side of football: as Clive Tyldesley pointed out over and over and over again, last night's match was played in far greater spirits than most this World Cup, bla bla bla. The referee helped - it was the best refereed match I've seen. Why was this? Because he didn't enforce any of stupid FIFA's stupid pernickety rules. I saw shirt-tugging, I saw players not giving the ball back... but I didn't see any subsequent pointless bookings. The game flowed, the players respected each other, and - yes! - it was even describable as an advertisement for the sport. Sepp Blatter, take note.
So the hosts go crashing out in dramatic circumstances - I can't say I'm too sorry to see them go, as once in the final they'd have surely won the bloody thing and, well, no no no no way would I have wanted that. Instead we've got the Italians, all playing out of their skins, and half whom are probably playing so well because they are acutely aware of the need to abandon one of several rapidly sinking ships once they head back to their respective clubs - Buffon to Arsenal? Del Piero to Bolton? Gilardino to Man United? All completely made-up (except for Buffon, which Tyldesley mentioned yesterday. The wanker.) If they keep that attitude up in the final then, with their defence as good as it is, I can't see them losing.
So all that remains to be said is - COME ON PORTUGAL! (Which you may think is sarcasm, but is genuinely not.)