Club Italia is a sort of bulletin board in which some Undici authors talk about the Azzurri’s matches at Euro 2024. You will find some tactical notes, naturally, and then some quick comments, emotional and atmospheric reconstructions. In short, a small mosaic of visions and ideas written in one go, shortly after the referee’s final whistle. Let’s start with the Dortmund match, the one won 2-1 against Albania. The hope, obviously, is that this column will last as long as possible. Maybe until the final in Berlin, scheduled for Sunday 14 July.
Italy had its game plan and carried it out, at all costs
The view from the southern steps of Signal Iduna Park, the “yellow wall” of Borussia Dortmund, was impressive: another wall, this time entirely red like the predominant color of the Albanian national team’s shirt, stood out over the rest of the stadium , surrounded the sector intended for the few Italy fans as if it wanted to intimidate, surround and crush it. Last night there were around 50 thousand Albania supporters, more than three quarters of the stadium’s capacity. And Bajrami’s goal after a few seconds could have further complicated the debut of Luciano Spalletti’s young team, with five starters at their first time in a major tournament wearing the blue shirt – Calafiori, Dimarco, Frattesi, Pellegrini and Scamacca. Instead, Italy had its match plan, prepared well and put into practice even better despite the goal conceded in the cold. Those who expected the three-man defense and a static team were surprised: the national team played in an ambitious and modern way, with Calafiori free to break forward like in Thiago Motta’s Bologna and Scamacca coming out of the penalty area to free up his players. insertions of Barella, Frattesi and Pellegrini (but we’ll talk about all this shortly). Albania didn’t show that they had any particular weapons to put Italy in difficulty, and so the Azzurri, after goals from Bastoni and Barella which immediately overturned the result, managed to control the game and legitimize the victory. As? With 68% of ball possession, with 812 passes (against Albania’s 373) and 34 touches in the opponent’s penalty area (Albania stopped at seven).
The second half moved at a slower pace than the first, but Italy managed the advantage without ever risking anything, even in a hostile environmental situation. Then came Manaj’s impromptu chance in injury time. More complicated tests will come for Spalletti’s team, starting from the second match of the group stage on Thursday against Spain, but the Italy of Euro 2024 has sent a very specific message: it wants to resemble that of three years ago, even at Naples, last season’s Italian champions, if you like; he wants to keep the ball at his feet and exploit his best players, starting with Chiesa – who drove his marker crazy and was awarded MVP of the match. All this was not a given in the red bowl of Dortmund.
It was the night of Bastoni and Calafiori
With two central defenders like Bastoni and Calafiori, everything is easier. Even the Italy of recent months, a team with a natural vertical tension, can suddenly find stability and certainty starting from possession. It must be said that the debut against Albania was the best possible match to invade the opponent’s half of the field, and going behind after less than thirty seconds helped even more to enhance the qualities of the two blue centre-backs with the ball. However, it is starting from the defence, and the central players, that Italy built the comeback and the first victory of these European Championships.
Bastoni had Toni Kroos-like numbers, with 123 touches, 96% passing accuracy, and also scored the equalizer in his spare time. Calafiori won all the aerial duels, accompanied by 3 interceptions and 5 recoveries. Then there are also two completed dribbles, and this is the other half of the picture: the Bologna defender, who has already been one of the most interesting news of the last season of European football, on his debut at the European Championships left on the pitch Dortmund a masterclass on how to create numerical superiority by reaching from midfielder to twenty meters with ease. His enormous sphere of influence on the maneuver allows him to completely free Dimarco in the wing position and helps the whole team to occupy the attacking midfield. In all this he would also be the second youngest defender of the Azzurri to play a match in the European Championships, after Paolo Maldini. This is why Calafiori and Bastoni, 47 years old between them, can mark an era in the national team, like many other pairs of central defenders before them. Except that this pair is different from all the previous ones, and not because both Calafiori and Bastoni are left-handed. Maybe, who knows, in a few years we’ll see the billboards with Calafiori’s face in black and white, and a claim to remind us that the Italy goalkeeper does a rather easy job. And we will remember that it all started on the night of Italy-Albania.
Barella’s goal is a small masterpiece
Not that further confirmation was needed, but Nicoló Barella is a champion of international caliber, perhaps the best player ever in this Italy. Of course, the goal raises his grade on the report card a lot: Barella has created a small masterpiece, for how he accompanies the action, for the way in which he manages to kick the ball, coordinating himself in a fraction of a second. And to think that the driving force of the Italian midfield shouldn’t have even played against Albania due to some muscular problems suffered during the week. And yet Barella is there, and he has proven once again that he is a player that many national teams envy us. Without fear of denial. Just look at his goal to understand what we mean:
If you press play, you can (re)enjoy Barella’s goal from three different angles
Gianluca Scamacca as Nikola Jokic
There was a moment in the match against Albania in which Gianluca Scamacca became Nikola Jokic. And, as in one of the most beautiful scenes de My friend Eric, «it wasn’t a goal, it was a pass». It happened in the 32nd minute of the first half, when Italy had already overturned the result and seemed to be able to get a third every time they managed to find the free man behind the enemy lines; if you pause this video at the right time you will notice that, immediately after Jorginho’s vertical touch. There are five opponents in Atalanta’s center forward shadow; And while everyone is busy imagining what he will do, wondering how he will manage to get around a defense that is about to collapse on him, he has already passed the ball in such a small space that a ball wouldn’t even fit there, creating from nothing an internal track between the central and full-back in which only those who know him as well as Frattesi – «We have done the math: from the youth team we spent at least 700 days in the room together», Frattesi said in an interview with The Republic – he could seriously believe.
When the others also believed in it, in certain plays by Scamacca, Italy created scoring opportunities – Pellegrini, shot off 70 seconds after Bajramj’s goal – and/or scored: the 2-1 goal came from his attempt to vaca cola inside the penalty area, an attempt that convinced the Albanian defenders that they only had to deal with him, forgetting about Dimarco and Barella. The fact that we are reminded of all this in a match in which Scamacca did not score shows how much the Atalanta center forward is capable of influencing those who play with and against him, how capable he is of sending his opponents into a tailspin, forced to miss playing time because they are busy thinking about what Scamacca can do. Just like it happens in the NBA with everyone who faces Nikola Jokic.
The counterpoint to the jokes
Since there are so many positive notes, at this point we could borrow a rather famous line from a film by Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo: «Wonderful, beautiful, beautiful. But in the meantime, how did we manage to win only 2-1 against Albania?”. The answer to this question was provided by Luciano Spalletti in the post-match interviews, when he said that «we are like this, we always have a bone to pick». Obviously he was referring to the tragicomic goal conceded with the first ball played, but perhaps also to Calafiori’s only distraction: in the 90-odd minute the Bologna defender misread a long throw towards Manaj, and only a yeti-like exit from Donnarumma allowed a mock draw was avoided.
In reality, given that we know Spalletti, we are certain that his catchphrase goes beyond individual episodes, however big they may be. The Italy coach knows very well that he has a team in his hands with a lot of talent and also modern, fluid, capable of interpreting many tactical variables, but which at the same time gives the feeling of not yet being savvy, of not to still be cruel when she has to kill matches, to still not be as hard as iron when she has to manage matches instead. It’s a question of youth and inexperience, of course, but ultimately experience is gained on the field. So it’s nice to think that this Italy is working on its flaws in top-level matches, that it is preparing something important for the future while enjoying the present. Ok, fine: against Spain and Croatia it will certainly be different. But in the meantime there is a man on the bench who warns you that a prank is lurking, that pranks shouldn’t be done, that there is always a way not to do them, and maybe he even tells the journalists. In this way, precisely in this way, however, that man – that coach – has given you confidence, he is making you grow. He is making you play a European Championship as a protagonist. This isn’t so obvious either, if you think about it.
