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The last Euro 2008 quarter-final pits current world champions Italy against widely tipped Spain who have been more impressive so far in the competition.
Spain comfortably finished top of their group, having gained the maximum nine points. Any defence in the world would fear their strike partnership of Fernando Torres and David Villa, the latter is the tournaments top scorer so far with a total of four goals. Controversial manager Aragones hopes he can lead Spain to a success which the nation has been without for so long. Whereas the Spaniards fielded a “reserve side” for their last group game, Italy faced France in a must win match after struggling against Romania and being outplayed by the Netherlands. Furthermore two of Italy’s key players, Gattuso and Pirlo, are suspended with another four players facing possible suspensions in the next round. Despite their unconvincing tournament up to now, Italy still possess great quality throughout the team. Arguably Buffon has been their player of the tournament and he will have to stop both Torres and Villa tonight. Score Prediction: Spain 1 – Italy 2 Following the pattern in the other quarter-final matches TF90M predicts the group runners-up to triumph. For the superstitious, Spain have been knocked out of major tournaments three times on the 22nd June. They lost to Belgium in 1986, England at Euro 96 and most recently against South Korea at the 2002 World Cup. However they did record a victory over the Italians back in 1930 on this very date. Notably on all of these occassions Spain crashed out on penalties. We will just have to wait and see whether fate strikes again! The 22nd June proved fourth time lucky for Spain as they triumphed on penalties after a lacklustre 120 minutes.
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