FIFA : Italy through to the final after beating Germany

Dortmund, July 5 : Italy Tuesday advanced to the final of the World Cup with a last-gasp 2-0 victory here in extra time against the hosts Germany. Fabio Grosso opened the scoring in the 119th minute after the German defence failed to clear a corner. Allesandro Del Piero added a second in injury time to put the victory beyond doubt. The second finalist will be determined in the other semi-final Wednesday in Munich between France and Portugal. Both coaches made changes to the sides that had won their respective quarter- final matches. German coach Juergen Klinsmann brought on Sebastian Kehl for suspended midfielder Torsten Frings, while Werder Bremen’s Tim Borowski lined up in place of Bastian Schweinsteiger. Klinsmann’s Italian counterpart Marcello Lippi introduced Marco Materazzi, who had been suspended for the 3-0 quarter-final win against Ukraine, for Andrea Barzagli. The first half was a very tactical affair as neither side wanted to risk too much going forward and as a result there were hardly any chances. Italy came close to opening the score in the 16th minute when Francesco Totti sent through Simone Perotta, but the English-born midfielder pushed the ball forward too far and goalkeeper Jens Lehmann was quick off his line to thwart the danger.

The hosts, who were seeking a historic eighth final appearance, concentrated their play on playing high balls into the area for the tournament’s top scorer Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski, but the Italian central defenders Fabio Cannavaro and Materazzi easily managed to deal with all the attacks. Ten minutes from the break Germany had their best opportunity of the first half through Bernd Schneider after Andrea Pirlo had given the ball away. Klose unselfishly layed off to the right, but the Bayer Leverkusen midfielder ballooned his shot over the bar. Klose came close five minutes after the restart when he beat Gennaro Gattuso and Cannavaro but Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon rushed off his line to prevent the Germans from going ahead. As the match progressed the Italians started playing five or six players behind the ball and relying on counter-attacks, without really putting Germany under any pressure.

The game then went into extra time. Italy came agonizingly close to scoring 39 seconds into extra-time as substitute Alberto Gilardino beat defender Christoph Metzelder and pushed the ball past Lehmann but saw it bounce against the upright and roll across the goalmouth. A minute later Gianluca Zambrota hit the crossbar with a long range effort after a corner. In the second half of extra time Germany looked the more eager side, but failed to break through the compact Italian defence and Italy snatched victory with two late goals.

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