BOLOGNA – Riccardo Calafiori, 22, and Andrea Cambiaso 24, have just set foot in National, yet they are the novelties of a team still in assembly. The Bologna defender, at the center of the market, is even a rookie veteran, and a fleeting one at that: he came on in the 40th minute of the second half of the friendly against Turkey in place of Dimarco. As for the Juventus eclectic player, he has only three appearances: the first as a starter, with Venezuela, in the American tour in March, the second for some change in the match at the end (again in the USA) against Ecuador, the third with Turkey: once (the second half) replacing Orsolini. Yet it is precisely these two neophytes who are the ones more comforting news of a group that, ten days after their debut at the European Championship, on 15 June in Dortmund with Albania, still does not have a defined assembly.
Italy-Türkiye, the Azzurri’s report cards: Mancini risks big, Bastoni elegance and strength. Orsolini disappoints in his stadium
by Matteo Pinci
04 June 2024
Spalletti and accelerated lessons
The one of Luciano Spalletti it’s a race against time and the freshness of Calafiori and Cambiaso, returning from an excellent season, becomes a very precious resource: having entered the national team that counts almost at the last minute, they can also aspire to a starting shirt. Their flexibility is certainly a quality appreciated by the coach, who in Bologna was also able to point out another not secondary one: resourcefulness. The limited time available is a concern that is impossible for the technical commissioner to hide. Who doesn’t give in to the temptation to feel sorry for himself, but is objectively penalized by the looming European Championship. His predecessor Roberto Mancini won the last edition showing off an innovative game, shaped in the three years following the failure of Ventura’s Italy to qualify for the 2018 World Cup and also in the 17 years of the pre-retreat in May 2021 in Sardinia and the retreat in Coverciano, where of the national team also following that unprecedented traveling tournament. Spalletti, in the friendly match in Bologna with Montella’s Turks, sat on the Italy bench for only the ninth time. He had a few months to start building the team he has in mind last autumn, to erase the wound of the second failure to qualify for the World Cup and to shape a new tactical system.
Objective: recover Barella and Scamacca
The club’s long season has returned tired players – above all Barella and Scamacca, who experienced the match with Turkey from the stands and who have to find the best athletic condition – and forced him to undergo accelerated tactical lessons in Coverciano: between the meeting and the departure for Germany he has only 10 days available, interspersed from the aforementioned friendly match against the Turks, from the match against the Under 20s, from a short rest and from the other friendly match against Bosnia in Empoli on 9 June. The rest will have to be done by training in the German training camp in Iserlohn, which at this point is more decisive than ever.
Fagioli and his return to the national team: 30 minutes, 19 balls touched, no errors. But he once made Spalletti angry
by Matteo Pinci
05 June 2024
Video analysis of technical errors
The alarm at the moment is above all technical. The coach himself said it, bluntly prefiguring the analysis of the video, after the 0-0 in Bologna, where Turkey showed off more precise setters than those used by the national team. The Azzurri made too many mistakes: “And when you make too many mistakes in possession of the ball, when you lack a bit of quality, you struggle to recover. We will review these situations. The reaggression in pressing becomes more urgent, you get more tired. The mental aspect also weighs: you realize the pressure and the wait for the European Championship.” Jorginho, the team’s critical conscience and captain against the Turks, hinted to Radiorai that during the interval the technical problem was addressed directly: “We have to believe in what we are doing and we believe in it. We fixed tactical things: in the second half we held the ball better and the results showed.”
Calafiori in tune with the coach
But it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that the slight improvement coincided with Cambiaso’s entry after the break. The former Genoa player – who can play indifferently on the right or on the left, as a winger or as an interior player – has offered more opportunities for action and has taken a lot of initiative: he allows the adoption of different offensive schemes. Calafiori, on the other hand, only entered at the end, but that was enough for him to show technical harmony with Spalletti’s ideas. He can play as a central defender and a full-back, he can adapt to the 3-man and 4-man lines, he can apply himself in marking or initiating the action, thanks to his midfielder’s foot, and he can allow Bastoni to slide as a central defender in 3, plausible alternative to the 4-man defense even during the same action. He, who in August 2023 was still playing for Basel and seemed far from the national team, takes refuge in superstition: “I hope with all my heart to go to the European Championship and I will do my best to get into the list of 26. But I have learned not to listen to voices, to avoid disillusionment”. Spalletti must instead avoid disappointment. This is why Calafiori and Cambiaso seem like two natural candidates for the trip to Germany.
