Luciano Spalletti’s decision that shakes up the blue team

In the training sessions of these days in Coverciano we glimpsed something new that could make all the difference in the world for Italy: Federico Chiesa on the right. There where he played the European Championship won three years ago, there where he no longer wanted to play after his knee injury. Chiesa insisted on his role, defining himself as a winger who starts from the left to come back, dribble and shoot. Point.

But this is a tactical imprisonment that Spalletti doesn’t like (“Players who occupy at least two positions have an advantage”) and that doesn’t benefit Italy. Yes, because the 3-4-2-1 that the coach is designing these days tends to get stuck with Chiesa high on the left. The reason is simple: the Juventus player stops and forces Dimarco to return to the middle of the pitch, as seen in previous episodes, and the Inter winger is a strong point if he plays wide and can interact with a courageous defensive third like Bastoni o Calafiori, lined up this evening (8.45pm, live on Rai Uno) in Empoli (“I bought all the tickets, the stadium will be full of my friends”, Luciano jokes but not too much) against Bosnia in the last friendly before the debut against Albania next Saturday. Spalletti is working on it and confirms it publicly: « Cambiaso, Pellegrini or… Chiesa can play on the right». This is how he responds regarding the definitive dismissal of the 4-3-3, also given the exclusion of Orsolini who was the only left-footed right winger, but it also applies and above all to the 3-4-2-1 from which the coach restarts with renewed conviction after the tactical confusion seen against Turkey.

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Let’s take tonight’s version for example: behind the striker, Scamacca, Pellegrini and Raspadori will act (with Folorunsho and Frattesi destined to take over), so there will be no pure wingers. On the outside it will be Dimarco and Cambiaso’s turn, with Jorginho and Fagioli in the center of the pitch in front of the new defense made up of Darmian, Buongiorno and Calafiori plus Donnarumma. The idea is that in this system Chiesa takes Raspadori’s place when it is necessary to widen rival defences, especially those that play three-man.

Because if Chiesa widens to the right, Cambiaso can converge in the finishing area. Alternatively, he would replace Cambiaso himself: Spalletti would in fact like to transform Chiesa from a winger to a “winger”, i.e. bring him back to the full-back role he played at his debut in Paulo Sousa’s Fiorentina, always on the right. Also because on the left, for an ultra-offensive version of Italy, perhaps when a result needs to be recovered, the coach foresees El Shaarawy.

It is not easy to push a player to cover a role in which he no longer sees himself, especially after a season practically in self-management in Allegri’s 3-5-2. So Chiesa stopped evolving. It takes psychological work that the coach knows how to do, but for which there is little time. One of the tools to speed up the therapy is the “stick” that follows the carrot period: tonight’s bench follows the substitution at half-time against Turkey. Not the treatment reserved for the “national champion”… or maybe yes, to wake him up from his torpor. Chiesa just has to trust Spalletti: being one-dimensional doesn’t help in contemporary football, not even if you’re the only one in the squad capable of jumping the man from nowhere.