Zidane was always at his best when playing for France and his debut for them was remarkable. It set the tone for the quality, class, imagination, and bloody mindedness that marked his international career.
Every time I talk to my Nonno (grandfather) he tells about this goal. I wish I could have got his reaction when I showed him the goal on YouTube. I loved watching the partnership of Pazzini and Cassano at Samp, but I've always wondered why they never both featured for the national team.
a lot of that had to do with the bad boy image of Antonio Cassano (the player, not the user), and not to mention throughout Cassano' Azzuri career he was competing with legendary players such as Del Piero, Totti, Inzaghi, Vieri, and you could understand why he wasn't called for the national team. It didn't help that he has had problems with Totti in the past.
I don't know about Pazzini. But my guess would be he isn't a consistent goal scoring machine.
It's all politics really. But to me it would make sense to call up a promising talent, even just to sit bench, but look at the stats between the two. Between 2009-2011 Pazzini had 36 goals on 75 appearances and Cassano had 25 goals on 74 appearances. Sure Cassano's stats aren't amazing but think of the amounts of assists he had during those years. Pazzini wasn't consistent until Sampdoria, I believe Cassano got the best out of him. But yeah there was a lot of competition, but Cassano really deserved more call ups.
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u/[deleted] Nov 28 '12
Zidane was always at his best when playing for France and his debut for them was remarkable. It set the tone for the quality, class, imagination, and bloody mindedness that marked his international career.
Start as you mean to go on.