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Team Focus: Relentless Juventus Building From the Back

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Team Focus: Relentless Juventus Building From the Back It wasn’t the most original idea. Many had thought of it and tried it before him. But Lyon coach Remi Garde still focused much of his preparation for the first leg of Thursday night’s Europa League quarter final against Juventus around it. The gist of his game plan seemed to be: stop And...

Player Focus: Bonucci Ability Taking Pressure Off Pirlo

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Player Focus: Bonucci Ability Taking Pressure Off Pirlo “You might have mistaken me for Pirlo if I had long hair, but I don’t,” joked Leonardo Bonucci after Juventus’ 4-1 win against Lazio at the end of last month. Let’s just say there was a ‘passing’ resemblance between teammates. Not everyone saw it. La Gazzett...

Player Focus: The Most Accurate Passers In Europe

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Player Focus: The Most Accurate Passers In Europe As the game has developed, the onus on ball retention and the recycling of possession has increased significantly. Teams are no longer looking towards the utilisation of a powerful target man as a battering room through the opposition defence as managers will often require their players to hold onto...

Player Focus: Europe's Most Consistent Performers

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Player Focus: Europe's Most Consistent Performers Barcelona's relatively routine 3-1 victory over Celta Vigo back in November won't have shocked anyone, but there was one surprising outcome from the match. Lionel Messi neither scored or assisted a goal in the game and completed only 1 dribble to ensure that he picked up a WhoScored rating of just 6...

Match Focus: Midfielders At The Heart Of Juventus vs Napoli Clash

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Match Focus: Midfielders At The Heart Of Juventus vs Napoli Clash This Saturday sees the resumption of what is quickly becoming the hottest battle in Serie A as Napoli once again travel north to face off against Juventus, the team who represent everything supporters of the Partenopei despise. Seemingly their entire ethos is to rally against the establishment, pain...

Player Focus: Europe's Set Piece Specialists

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Player Focus: Europe's Set Piece Specialists The art of the free kick has become one so practised in the modern game that the poses of the likes of David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo as they line up a shot are now instantly recognisable. Ronaldo’s routine puff of his chest and is more iconic than Jonny Wilkinson’s stance before a ...

Euro 2012 Focus: The Final - Spain vs Italy

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Euro 2012 Focus: The Final - Spain vs Italy So, it's decided. Spain will face Italy in the final Euro 2012 after many believed that Germany were shoe-ins to progress past the Azzurri. Much of the credit should go to Cesare Prandelli for the Italian's surprise appearance in Sunday's showdown, with the former Fiorentina boss taking a team who h...

Euro 2012 Focus: Germany vs Italy

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Euro 2012 Focus: Germany vs Italy Joint favourites Germany face England's conquerors Italy in the second semi-final of Euro 2012 on Thursday night, with Löw’s side having been heavily backed since the tournament began having won all of their games so far. In comparison, Italy have only actually won once in normal time of ...

Euro 2012 Focus: Quarter-Final Best XI

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Euro 2012 Focus: Quarter-Final Best XI Drawing ever closer to its conclusion, Euro 2012 has been whittled down to the last 4 teams after the quarter-finals went to plan for the Portuguese, Germans, Spaniards and Italians. The four matches threw up very few surprises, with all the favourites progressing and the England-Italy match unsurpr...

Euro 2012 Focus: WhoScored's Team of the Group Stages

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Euro 2012 Focus: WhoScored's Team of the Group Stages With the group stages now over and the quarter-finalists known, this day break from football gives us a perfect chance to analyse the best players at the tournament so far. Here we will give you a rundown of our best XI over the three group matches according to WhoScored ratings and explain just why...