{"id":460,"date":"2012-06-29T11:43:26","date_gmt":"2012-06-29T11:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/2012\/06\/29\/italy-beat-germany-2-1-to-reach-euro-2012-final\/"},"modified":"2012-06-29T11:43:26","modified_gmt":"2012-06-29T11:43:26","slug":"italy-beat-germany-2-1-to-reach-euro-2012-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/italy-beat-germany-2-1-to-reach-euro-2012-final\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy beat Germany 2-1 to reach Euro 2012 final"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Italian striker Mario Balotelli scored two magnificent goals against Germany in the first half of their Euro 2012 semi-final on Thursday, giving his side a 2-1 victory over Germany and sending the Azzurri into a final against Spain. <\/p>\n<p> <!--more--> A Mario Balotelli header and a thumping drive gave Italy a richly deserved 2-1 win over Germany in Thursday&#8217;s Euro 2012 semi-final in Warsaw.<\/p>\n<p>The 21-year-old struck a first half brace to stun the Germans before a Mesut Ozil penalty reduced the deficit at the death.<\/p>\n<p>Italy will play defending champions Spain in the final on Sunday in Kiev.<\/p>\n<p>Balotelli headed in on 20 minutes after a superlative piece of skill and cross from Antonio Cassano, who out-foxed two defenders before delivering the striker his chance on a plate.<\/p>\n<p>Then on 36 minutes Balotelli produced a scintillating second, smashing home from just outside the box after beating the offside trap after a Riccardo Montolivo through ball played him into acres of space.<\/p>\n<p>Balotell removed his shirt and stood stock still to milk the applause &#8211; taking the resulting booking as a minor irritation.<\/p>\n<p>Although the Germans put the pressure on after the interval Claudio Marchisio could have added further goals after the break as he broke free twice only to fire narrowly wide.<\/p>\n<p>With 20 minutes remaining Balotelli gave way to Antonio Di Natale after pulling up with cramp.<\/p>\n<p>Di Natale came close as he fired into the side netting late on as the Italians maintained their record of never losing to the Germans at a major tournament.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>FRANCE 24.COM <\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Italian striker Mario Balotelli scored two magnificent goals against Germany in the first half of&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}