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Originally Posted by !@#$%!
it was great to watch two schools of football battle it out so distinctly. of course you know i love italy's style, especially under prandelli, but england kept trying and made it interesting and it was great.
in the end i think the thing was that pirlo > gerrard. (yes, i exaggerate, but there's something to it).
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Gerrard only really became a deep-lying playmaker once he became too old for his traditional box-to-box role. He's very good there but it's not natural to him the way it is for Pirlo, who seems almost uniquely born for the job.
But yeah, I loved the two opposing schools thing too. These aren't two great sides but they're very capable ones, with good managers and a nice mix of experience and youth. Holland-Spain was something epic, a game people will talk about for years. That won't happen with the Italy-England game but I somehow thought it was the more all-round satisfying game to watch. Nothing spectacular, no great falls from grace or moments of redemption, no particular wow moments, just a really good evenly matched game of football.