First Half Tied 11-11 with Italy, Old Zhu's Soul Chicken Soup

Italy's attack gave the chinese fans quite a scare!

But when they saw Chiellini blast his point-blank shot wide, everyone breathed a sigh of relief!

[Thanks to our brother Chiellini for the gift! You're too kind, lining up to hand us presents!]

[Italy's luck is truly something else. First Cannavaro's basic error, and now Chiellini missing an empty goal. If I were Lippi, I'd quit overnight!]

[Heh, does Lippi bear no responsibility at all? Look at the freaks he picked. Juventus finished seventh in Serie A last season, yet he built the National Team's core around the Juventus squad. He knew there were no usable star forwards, but still refused to call up Totti as an emergency measure.

Cannavaro was already a complete mess at Juventus last season, yet he still treated him like some precious treasure.

Those selection mistakes would be one thing, but the key is that his tactics are incredibly conservative.

Fine, playing conservatively in the knockout stage is understandable. But playing a damn group-stage match like this? As a twenty-year Italy fan, I could not watch anymore!]

Italy had one particular trait: they were not strong against weak opponents, but they were not weak against strong ones either.

It seemed that in every tournament, their path to qualification was extremely difficult.

At the 2002 World Cup, Italy suffered an upset loss to Croatia in their second group-stage match, backing themselves into a corner. They only finally advanced after barely drawing with Mexico in the third match.

At the 2004 European Championship, Italy simply crashed out in the group stage. They could not even beat weak teams from Northern Europe—it was utterly pathetic!

At the 2006 World Cup, the tournament Italy won, their qualification had not been smooth sailing either.

After being held to a draw by