Moonchesteri wrote:zuricity wrote:Meanwhile Mario is attaining cult status in Italy with his performance tonight
please enlighten us?
Italy are leading 1-0 at half-time in Poland thanks to a magnificent Mario Balotelli strike – his first for his country.
The Azzurri performed some experiments in this friendly against one of the Euro 2012 hosts in the Wroclaw stadium that will be used in next summer’s tournament.
Milan right-back Ignazio Abate was given his senior Italy debut and Giorgio Chiellini returned to the central defensive role, while Riccardo Montolivo was the trequartista behind Mario Balotelli and Giampaolo Pazzini.
This was the first game since learning usual starting strikers Antonio Cassano (heart surgery) and Giuseppe Rossi (knee ligaments) would be out for six months, so their participation in Euro 2012 could well be in doubt.
Balotelli and Pazzini exchanged position regularly to confuse the opposition defence and leave no specific centre-forward to mark. Slawomir Peszko wasted by firing wide on the bounce from nine yards. Pazzini sprung the offside trap from a smart Claudio Marchisio through ball, but tried to cut back inside Damien Perquis and was closed down for a corner.
Italy should’ve taken the lead when a cross went past Pazzini to find an unmarked Daniele De Rossi down the right side of the penalty area, but the Roma man tried to pass it back into the middle rather than shoot for goal.
Poland went very close when a Ludovic Obraniak corner found Robert Lewandowski at the back post for a header on to the side-netting, as Gigi Buffon had flapped at the cross.
Balotelli also nodded an Andrea Pirlo corner over the bar and Chiellini clattered – cleanly, albeit very violently – into Lukasz Piszczek.
Blaszczykowski tried to wriggle through the Azzurri defence and almost managed it, but was eventually closed down for a throw-in.
Balotelli had seemed to be doing very little, but he suddenly brought an amazing goal out of the hat. Marchisio won back possession and he was over 20 metres out and curled a stunning right-foot lob into the far top corner, spotting Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny off his line. As is his way, SuperMario celebrated his first senior goal for Italy without a smile, but by kissing the shirt.
Buffon did well to beat away a dangerous Lewandowski snapshot from a tight angle, though Montolivo should’ve passed to Pazzini rather than hit a meek attempt at Szczesny.