Italy bores me!

World champions two years ago. Isn't that something to think about? The Italians were so negative in their approach last night its amazing how they even bothered turning up at all. Placing a brick wall in front of their goal would have provided just as much entertainment.

A bore draw. 0-0. Nothing more, nothing less. Last night's quarterfinal between Spain and Italy offered as much excitement as Cristiano Ronaldo's pending announcement. You just knew what the outcome was going to be. The Italians may have been deprived of their 'fantasista', Andrea Pirlo, but that's no excuse to be playing such boring rubbish. They would've struggled to create anything even if you had given each player a bucket of Play-doh. Spain did their best to create chances but anything they put together was quickly snuffed out by Italy. The closest they came to scoring was when Gianluigi Buffon fumbled Marcos Senna's drive onto the post. Spain struggled to break down what was admittedly a very well organised defense, Giorgio Chiellini and Christian Panucci performing admirably as makeshift centre backs.

You'd expect Spain to come up with better than that. The onus was on them to be the creative team in the contest with Italy playing for penalties. They failed. David Villa looked extremely quiet on the night and David Silva was probably their most effective player going forward, with several long range shots just off target and some testing Buffon somewhat. It was still surprising to see Fernando Torres hauled off to be replaces by Daniel Güiza, especially with penalties looming. Güiza missed his penalty in the shootout and must be thankful for Iker Casillas' subsequent save from Antonio Di Natale. Somehow, despite the lack of openings created by Spain, you felt that they were bound to go through. At least they had tried to make a contest of it. If Italy had on the shootout, football would be the loser. It just felt fair. Their victory was their first over Italy in a major tournament in 88 years. Can't say it was worth the wait but at least they're through to their first European Championship semifinal since 1984. All these firsts. Shows just how much Spain have underachieved. There is a sense they can go all the way this time but they'll have to be more creative and lethal in front of goal than last night.

Especially since they're up against Russia, a completely different side than the one they convincingly beat 4-1. With football's latest superstar, Andrei Arshavin, Russia will certainly have revenge on their mind and to show the world that the defeat to Spain was only a flash in the pan. Reports have already linked several clubs to Arshavin and don't expect the trend to change until he finds a new employer. The only thing certain about the game is that Russia won't be such easy pickings for Spain again. It should certainly be another good game of football, certainly better than last night's. It would be a huge disappointment if it was anything less.

No talk of Ronaldo today. Thank God. Just a bunch clubs eyeing up Arshavin. And Paul Ince has become the first black British manager in the Premiership. Trust the media to play up such an incident. Plain fact is that if there were good ones before, they would've risen to the top earlier. Forget all the talk of not enough chances, if you're good enough, you'll get to the top sooner or later. Good luck to Ince, he'll need some of it.