It's Italian defence versus Dutch flair

AMSTERDAM, JUNE 28. Two schools of thought in world soccer will collide in the Euro 2000 semifinals here on Thursday, when Holland's goal-happy `total football' comes up against the gritty realism of Italian defending. Dutch football has been influenced for decades by the attacking wizardry of Johan Cruyff and the swashbuckling style of play he later transferred at club level to Barcelona in a prestigious coaching career.

That line continued with Marco van Basten and Ruud Gullit, who guided Holland to the European title in 1988, and the old `school tie' has been in evidence again at Euro 2000 on the likes of Dennis Bergkamp and Patrick Kluivert.

The demolition of Yugoslavia in the quarterfinals showed just how much damage Frank Rijkaard's side can wreak against a side which is sloppy and over-run in the middle of the park.

Kluivert, ditched by AC Milan in 1998 after a miserable debut season, scored a hat-trick, Bergkamp was omnipresent in his playmaking role and Marc Overmars again used his speed and ball skills down the flank.

The Dutch may have put Yugoslavia's defence through the shredding-machine, but they will not find it so easy to do the same with the likes of Paolo Maldini, Alessandro Nesta and Fabio Cannavaro.

Holland may have been attacking at full tilt since the 1970s but Italian defences have been weathering storms for a lot longer than that. And the nation who gave football the word `Catenaccio' for a gridlocked defensive system, has not betrayed its ancestry at Euro 2000 - conceding just a miserly two goals in four matches.

Italy has an enviable generation of flair players in Francesco Totti, Alessandro del Piero and midfielder Stefano Fiore, but solid defending and counter-attack has been the basis of Italy's success at Euro 2000. Rijkaard, who as a player won two European Champions Cups and two Italian League titles in a five-year stint with AC Milan, has an insider's understanding of Italian football and knows the problem he has to crack. Two of the men he will try to foil - Maldini and Demetrio Albertini - are former teammates.

But although he knows that Italy will be waiting for Holland to leap for the jugular and therefore expose itself to a potentially fatal Italian strike on the break - there is little he can do. Holland cannot change its approach to football just for one match.

``We want to play our own offensive game, but the Italians have a tight defence and give very few chances,'' he admitted, adding that Italy's other skill is to `score goals at the right moments'.

Maldini, who should recover from a thigh strain or make way for Gianluca Pessotto, is equally clear about his team's tactics against the Dutch. ``We've just got to be careful, but then Italy are masters at that, at not giving opposing attackers any space,'' he said. - AFP

Holland's Patrick Kluivert (left), who seems to have an insatiable appetite for goals, will have to play at his best to get past the dogged Italian defence marshalled from the front by the reliable Paolo Maldini in the second semifinal of the Euro 2000 football championship at Amsterdam on Thursday.

- Reuters

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