Italy's Disaster

Images by El Universo

Italy showed the world the European crisis that most of the powerful teams of this continent are suffering in this 2010 FIFA World Cup by losing 3 - 2 to Slovakia and was eliminated in the group stage four years after their conquest into winning the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Italy's luck came about the same with France, their rival in Germany 2006, in which the Italian team were last in their group, without winning a single game. This situation was similar when France was World Cup Champion in France 1998 and were eliminated in Korea/Japan in 2002 in the group stage. The match was based on much control from both sides, but lacking the occassions to open the score were very minimal and not much luck over the ticking time. In the 15 minute Daniele De Rossi made a huge mistake when he received a pass from a teammate, which the Slovakians took advantage and midfielder Juraj Kucka took advantage and intercepted the ball so that he passed to striker Robert Vittek as he kicked the ball, Marchetti couldn't make the save so the Slovakians were in front of the score of 1 - 0.

With this result, many were mouth opening about what is going on, so in the second half, Italian coach Marcelo Lippi substituted midfielder and the brain of the team Andrea Pirlo for striker Fabio Quagliarella. With the substitutes under Marcelo Lippi's command, Italy controlled most of the match and seemed to be waken up from the nightmare they were suffering and the reaction was incredible by putting three forwards to widen and to score as fast as possible by pressuring the rival more and more, but since as the match became pressured by the Italians, the second goal was scored for Slovakia with a distraction from Italian defender Chiellini and then to put the 2 - 0. When everything seemed impossible, Italy never gave up and put up a big fight at the 81 minute when Antonio Di Natale intercepted a rejection from the Slovakians and scored in the area for the 2 - 1. Italy tried their best to attack from all sides, left, right, and center, but it seemed impossible, but at the 89 minute, Slovakian midfielder Kamil Kopunek surprised everyone with a bad positioned Italian defense to sentence the 3 - 1 score with a fast lateral exit and beated goalkeeper Marchetti. Then, Di Natale surprised out of nowhere with a shot outside the goal area to define the final score of 3 - 2.

This will be always known as one of the biggest upset in World Cup history.