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Balotelli celebrates scoring his side's second goal. Vadim Ghirda/AP/Press Association Images
Review

Italy's press revels in Balotelli brilliance, Polish papers hail 'best Euro match'

La Repubblica called the match “a masterpiece”.

ITALY’S PRESS ON Friday celebrated the national side’s 2-1 Euro 2012 semi-final victory against Germany and in particular the double by “stratospheric” striker Mario Balotelli.

“A strong Italy and a stratospheric Balotelli sunk Germany and took Italy to seventh heaven,” the Corrierre dello sport said in its online edition, reminding readers that Germany had been favourites to win Thursday’s tie in Warsaw, Poland.

The daily added that the Azzurri had put in a “mind-blowing performance” while Balotelli’s two first-half goals were “splendid”.

Gazzetta.it, in particular, hailed a masterful performance from midfield playmaker and official man of the match Andrea Pirlo, saying that he “directed operations and was, as usual, the lynchpin of the side”.

La Repubblica called the match “a masterpiece”, particularly in the “perfect” first-half “which showed everyone who thought that Balotelli couldn’t play at centre-forward or that (coach Cesare) Prandelli had problems that they were wrong”.

Meanwhile, Poland’s press celebrated the victory of “glorious Italy” against Germany in the semi-final of Euro 2012 in the last match to be played in the capital of the co-hosts.

“Warsaw was lucky. The last match in Poland was the best of all the games in the championship. The Italians, completely transformed by coach Cesare Prandelli, once again displayed some really glorious football,” the daily Rzeczpospolita said.

According to ‘Polska The Times’ “even before the final we can say that Euro 2012 was a great success”.

“Without name plates of the cities near the stadiums, television viewers would not have known the difference between a match played in Lviv (in western Ukraine) or in Gdansk (in norther Poland) or one played in Milan or Barcelona,” it added.

Euro 2012 in Poland “will go down in history as the first big celebration involving virtually all of society since the festival of Solidarity”, the anti-communist union of Lech Walesa that emerged in 1980, said Gazeta Wyborcza.

“If you count on the word of foreign fans, we could be welcoming an extra million tourists this summer because they virtually all said that they want to come back to Poland,” the newspaper added.

© AFP, 2012

Read: Brazil bound: Loew will remain German coach through to World Cup>

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