What I’ve learned this World Cup is that the Germans are fine hosts even when they are riding around Berlin all night honking their horns after a win, I can indeed have a love/hate relationship with the Italians, and that predictions are a fool’s game.

That said, I do envisage a tight, entertaining match today that ends up 2-0 to the Italians. Their defense is just too organized and talented. France will almost certainly play a 4-2-3-1 which has left Zinedine Zidane as the sole playmaker during the tournament. Italy will make quick work of this and stifle any service to French striker Thierry Henry.

But the French have a fine defense themselves and will not give the newly attacking Italians much room to work. But the one weak link in the French team, their goalkeeper Fabien Barthe,z will not be able to make the extraordinary save and one or two of the Italian chances are sure to go in.

So, that’s it, thankfully my final World Cup prediction, Italy to win 2-0 in a great match (which definitely means France will win 1-0).

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 9th, 2006 at 11:47 am and is filed under World Cup 2006. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.