Blac and Nents silly match reports

[Nentsia]

I've played my 2nd game of the Euro 2016 tournament, and the next opponent was Poland. Poland has grown to one of the stronger teams in Europe, as many Polish players nowadays play with top teams in the German Bundesliga, the Italian Serie A, and the French and English leagues. Lewandowski, their striker, is their best player - one of the best strikers in the world. My scouts warned for his tendency to dive near the penalty area and earn free kicks. Of course, I put the best man-marker in the world on his tail: Andrea Barzagli.

My formation barely changed, but the tactics did somewhat. Against England, I had basically parked the bus in front of the goal. I literally won just because I sent the troops forward in the final 5 minutes of the match. And because I had luck. Against Poland I wanted the team to take more initiative in the match and actively seek to score (and not wait until a lucky strike in the 90th minute...). The positional change I made was to switch to a flat 3-man midfield in the centre. Against England Marchisio played as a defensive midfielder, because I wanted to bother Sterling. Poland had no attacking midfielder, enabling me to bring Marchisio forward. Poland's formation was a defensive 4-2-1-3, with 2 defensive midfielders and a central midfielder shielding their defense.

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The game was, as could be expected, boring. My team tried to reach the two strikers from the flanks. Marchisio and Verratti used their sublime passing skills to send long balls to the flanks, offer support to my wing-backs, and switch the play to the other side of the pitch if necessary. Pelle dropped deeper to receive direct passes in the transitional faces, while he waited for the cross in the penalty box during attacks.

Basically, nothing meaningful happened in the first half. Poland played at a deadly slow pace, and kept pretty much everyone behind the ball when they had posession. My Italian crew was a little more dangerous, with its constant searching of the wings and dangerous long crosses into the box. Other than that, my team too played cautiously. Poland held most of the ball posession, but they did little with it. They were too scared, and my defensive organization too stable. My team quickly lost posession, but it had mainly to do with the rather fast search for the strikers in the penalty box - thus leading to posession loss. In the 60th minute however, the ball fell for a blue guy's feet and my team scored. It was a ramshackle affair however: Verratti received the ball from the left flank on Poland's half, and sent it deep to the right flank for Florenzi. Florenzi dribbled into the penalty box, shot, but the keeper blocked it. Then Pelle tried to score from the rebound, but a Polish player threw himself before the goal. Then finally there was Gabbiadini to put his foot against the lose ball and scored.

Six minutes later, Poland equalized. Their right winger went past my defender, crossed it, and Buffon tried to knock it away. But instead he knocked it in front of Grosicki's feet who scored.

By the 82nd minute, my team was preparing to besiege the Polish team to grind out another late winning goal, but it wasn't necessary. Out of a corner kick, the Poles lost ball posession. Verratti sent a long ball forward to Pelle, waiting at the half line. As he received the ball, Gabbiadini went deep through the middle of the pitch, with not a single Polish defender around. Pelle sent a deep pass, and Gabbiadini - 1v1 on the goalkeeper - scored 2-1. It was a perfect counter-attack, executed with only 2 touches of the ball. The Poles, still wishing to survive the group stage, were now forced to go forward. My team, meanwhile, resurrected the Great Wall of Italia.

In the 90th minute, there was again an Italian counter-attack. This time it was along the right flank. As the counter was slowed down, Verratti switched the play to the left flank. Mattia De Sciglio (brought on the pitch five minutes earlier), in a perfect instance of ''fantasia'', spotted a hole in the Polish defence and cut right through it with a razor-like crosspass through the middle, where suddenly Gabbiadini emerged to score the 3rd goal.

With only 36% ball posession, my team won with 3-1. They had a 74% pass success rate (much better than against England), and a stunning 12 shots on goal (Poland had 3). After the game the media hailed the ''sublime'' effectiveness of the Italian team. Effectiveness is what I aim for.