So the Finale starts...

Italy vs Spain. The Mother of End All. Boring footie vs currently shit footie? Perhaps Schmeichel was right after all. If you lose by playing pretty football, it's far more insulting. Ironically, that's actually how Real won their Liga even if they've hit that occasional acid trip. I bet he nvr made this point clear. Fair enough tho given he didn't like Real that much (And neither do I on personal terms as well for all the obvious reasons). In a very funny sense, seeing La Furia Roja playing their WTF 4-3-3 is just like seeing Archer fighting first person. They don't fight with honor so as to speak, but they sure will fight to win (Fabregas@centre of the fore=firing Broken Phantasms at will=legit foul play unplayable by others. >.<).
Now a lot of ppl will keep complaining abt why 4-6-0? My guess is very simple. Del Bosque might have some kind of weird mentality that w/o Villa, Torres will be some kind of funny wild card that he couldn't 100% rely on. Over-reliance on World Cup 2010 perhaps? Maybe scoring against Barca last time round ain't that enough for El Nino.Nerf versión. For those used to pwning ppl back then in BlazBlue Calamity Trigger due to Nu-13, I know you all are feeling like shit atm. So is del Bosque being too conservative? Maybe we should see things this way: "I don't play to draw 0-0. I play to win 1-0". Lest we forget, how many established No.9 blokes do LFR have this time round? Apparently, barring Torres aside, the other No.9 shirts don't have enough exp to tide them over. Case in point: Why is it that ppl tend to say Negredo was shit against Portugal? Would it be better for Llorente to start? What abt Torres? We all know the battle was won at the middle park, the war being lost come the end of the day. That is Portugal's story. i.e. lacking a decent centre forward=versatility nerfed=LFR not so kangkor (pinned against the odds in Hokkien dialect) after all.
On the other hand, should Italy be over-confident? That depends on how we see the victory over the Krauts. A lot has been said on Jogi sticking Tony Kroos onto Pirlo. Hodgson tried that with Welbeck. He failed spectacularly. Kroos? He failed epically. Now let this be known: Pirlo's greatest weapon is NOT his insanely broken ball control. Back then in club football, he has always been used to this position. So did Prandelli throw his own die here? Maybe not. Jogi's greatest failing has been the same problem with Blanc during Les Bleus' Waterloo against Armada Española itself: tactical naivety. Kroos has the technical advantage Welbeck doesn't have. Pirlo has that kind of intelligence perhaps even rivaling Erasmus himself. Welbeck is still a kid, Kroos is...well...no longer a boy, yet to be a man. So is it any wonder that Jogi opted for the fatal mistake of focusing his eyes on Pirlo deep in the middle? A lot has been said on why no wide players used. My guess on that front is that Prandelli=Al Pacino of the pitch. Simply put, by focusing the ball onto Pirlo, he's drawing the Teutonic blokes to the Roman fort. There's no point in trying to kill that damned Legatus if all you can do is to fight a phalanx brick wall while the Sagitarii keep on flanking you like nobody's business. Simply put, no Balotelli, no goals. No Pirlo, no salami served.

Tactical drawing board(?)

First things first: How to beat Spain. Blanc's tactical inexperience cost the team, but Bento nearly profited from the whole deal. Simply put, La Roja robbed=armoury robbed. Blanc tried an "all guys behind" style of possession robbing cum retention. Les Bleus defended too deep=condemned as Les Blurs. Bento improvised the whole damned thing=purists cried foul over the far more beautiful Iberian being stripped. Yet, if Italy are to retain their own brand of Calcio Italiano, LFR better be careful. Simply put, what you can do, I can do equally well. It's all down to deployment. As I've stated just now, Pirlo is the key. Yet Jogi has just demo'ed the Numero Uno rule on how not to do that. If the Cosa Nostra is still kicking and strong, I suspect only Prandelli can bust these fellas into the slammer. Period. What we're seeing here is an extremely shrewd sense of 4-1-3-2. One Pirlo with three fellas in front. This is to force the opponents into the center once he has the ball and refused to come out ala how Sima Yi managed to drive Zhuge Liang to his grave literally. This is where De Rossi's importance comes in. As the certified lynchpin, he's there to command the other two fellas NOT to limit the access by numbers, but rather forcing the opposing players to go width mode. Once this happens, the fullbacks will swing into action aka zoning the area around Pirlo. Effectively speaking, the Italians are deploying the kind of tactics that 4-6-WTF LFR has been doing as well. Both are playing suffocation, yet Italy will have the advantage going forward with the ball. It's not just Super Mario. Cassanata will have his own part to play as well due to Balotelli being more of a finisher while his anti-gay counterpart=more of a provider (Note the subtle warning of possible versatility in position. England couldn't stand up even with a crutch for a very good reason). As long as De Rossi is prowling around waiting to crush the balls of any poor bloke in red (figuratively speaking ofc), the Roman fort would have been effectively completed along with the fullbacks zoning and centre-backs pushing forward to repel the red onslaught beyond their own third.

For LFR, the onus is still the same. Control the ball and push your offensive line cautiously, yet so surely. Mind games wise, that will create a certain panic where the opponents will be bluffed into believing that the red mist is approaching like a Mazda where in fact the said Mazda wasn't even cruising to be fair. This is where Blanc failed, yet Bento succeeded via an improvisation of the failure 4-1-4-1 (i.e. no one in his right mind will play 4-1-2-3 unless your grey matter looks weirdly like a certain Portuguese waiting to poke the eyes of Catalonia itself). Now the most dangerous part abt this tactic is this: El Zorro doesn't need a certified No.9 by default to deliver the goods. As long as they can restrict access into their own third, you're as good as dead. There can be only one Sir Francis Drake. And I believe the English are still crying for one in their national team. For the Spanish, they have guys like Ramos and Pique who can end up attending Shakira's victory-for-my-Catalonian-bf concert while the greatest weapon could very well lie in their reserves. If Jesus of Sevilla can travel on the pitch like how Zhang Liao owned Sun Quan's forces at Hefei, then Pedro Rodriguez himself will be the only reason in justifying Pep's decision to sell Bojan Krkic last time round. And to AS Roma no less. Most ironic lulz ever? You decide for yourselves. :S

Most ideally, Italy will do well to wrap the game up by full time. Even if we're talking abt extra time, Italy should at least control the game. If it's a 50-50 come ET, then LFR will start to laugh like El Diablo himself. Come PK, Totti won't be around.
Within normal time, LFR should not commit too many guys forward in any manner. Controlling the middle third will be their toughest task so far. With the ball, they'll have to deal with three Azzurris at the centre while going out wide=two lurking amigos in blue. Without the ball, LFR will be screwed and suffocated with the ref's whistle being their only release. For del Bosque, the only key lies in doing the P.I.M.P.

P(lacement).I(mprovising).M(ovement).P(ositioning)

YO, YO, YO, YO... My god is not your god because he's not a bloody monkey god. I only know YO! YO! YO! because I dunno "uh! uh! uh!" Banana is good for you because hey guess what? Leonidas really likes BANANA!