No, who’s picking on these players he didn’t really understand anything. Of this national team, the European Championships and about football in general. Italy was eliminated in the worst possible way and, understandably, the anger of the entire country has been unleashed. However, in the last few hours it has been joined by a certain mud machine towards guys who don’t deserve all this. Why they are not the culprits. The footballers of Italy they are not scarce, they are not badthey are not the guilty of this disaster.
It’s true, there would be a thousand mitigating factors to avoid this elimination: Italy was the reigning champion and can’t always win. She had the misfortune of falling into a iron ring with Spain, Croatia and Albania, the most difficult of all. She had to rebuild everything after Roberto Mancini’s farewell less than a year agoand it started again from Luciano Shoulder pads who had just packed the Napoli’s miraculous scudetto e It seemed the best on the market for Italy.
But it is also true that these can all be considered aggravating: Italy was the reigning European Champion, among other things of a European Championship postponed by a year due to the pandemic and therefore played just three years ago. Many of those Champions I’m still in full swing and they should have defended the title in a much more dignified manner than what was seen on the pitch in these matches in Germany. There are no more Chiellini, Bonucci, Verratti, Insignia e Immobile who were great talents of that team and were decisive in many matches, but all the others are still there. The iron circlethen, one way or another, it had been overcome and Italy had ended up on the easier side of the scoreboard: France, Germany, Spain and Portugal could only reach the final, the only big name in the Azzurri’s way wasEngland – possibly – ai Quarters.
E Roberto Mancini had left a legacy of a national team ready for great challenges: he was the first coach to give an identity to offensive game based on ball possession and territorial dominance. Thus, always and only giving a show with the 4-3-3 used without hesitation for five yearsin 2021 he won a European Championship in the midst of Two Nations League groups dominated In the 2020 It is in the 2022 (the latter being sensational, with Germany, England and Hungary), reaching twice out of two the semi-finals of the new competitionwhere he was stopped in both cases by the Spain of measure (always 2-1) but then he always won the final for third place first with Belgium and then with Holland. With two third placesis the national team with the most podiums overall in the new European competition, having been played three times so far.
Era a beautiful Italythe one of Mancini: strong, authoritative, ambitious, successful. Which played on equal terms with the big teams, which always went all the way in competitions, with the historic cherry on top of the victory at the European Championship to compensate for the failure of being excluded from the World Cup very unfortunate indeed because it is conditioned by them episodes of those cursed matches with Bulgaria (1-1 in Florence with 20 shots on target and 4 posts) and the two draws with Swiss in two games dominated and compromised by Jorginho’s inaccuracy from the penalty spot. You can lose, that way. But not like yesterday.
With Spalletti, in fact, Italy is lost. We didn’t expect to win another European. We defended the team and the coach when, a few days ago, they lost 1-0 to Spain. Because Spain is stronger, (he had beaten us, in fact, also in the last two semi-finals of the Nations League; and at the European Championships in the semi-final we had only won on penalties); Why we’re losing to Spainbecause it was one narrow defeatbecause in the final the team even has almost equalizedbecause we were in the group and that defeat was irrelevantbecause a few days before we had won and played well against Albania, because the coach was always using the same module (he had chosen 4-2-3-1) and not we had to make tragedies after that defeat with our heads held high (the players left the field applauded by the fans); instead it was necessary defend the teamthe group, the choicesgiving certainties e continuity to the project.
And not we would have had tragedies if Italy had been eliminatedlikewise with dignityai Quarters fromEngland or even more so if he had lost the final against another big team. Or even if in semi-final l’When would have the best on penaltiesWe didn’t ask for the moon. We simply asked a path worthy of the history of Italian football.
E it wasn’t like that.
Spalletti cannot help but resign: he is the creator of worst European in at least 20 yearsand probably even more since the one in 2004 was only one mockery due to the Danish-Scandinavian biscuit. An undeserved elimination. A Nordic wickedness. Here, instead, the responsibilities are all the coach’s That He couldn’t handle the pressure and the criticisms after the defeat against Spain ed it went haywire: he changed formation and half the team against Croatia, and it is it was immediately a disaster. Without the rather casual goal of Zaccagni al 98°we would have already gone home that evening. When Spalletti had even switched to 3-5-2and Italy had already been unwatchable. New revolution and 4-3-3 against Switzerlandin what perhaps was the worst match in the history of the national football team. Someone had written that the worst was the one with Spain: even in that case, it is people who don’t understand anything about football. Why with Spain you can be put under: they are a group of phenomena. With Croatia and Switzerland absolutely not: I am small teams compared to the Azzurri. Italy, this Italy with these footballers, would have could e due stroll, dominate, to spread.
The great qualities of footballers: it is absurd to criticize them
How can you dispute the quality of players who instead, both with the national team shirt in the past That in their club teams, they are doing great?
Someone is getting angry with By Lorenzo, even on the front pages of newspapers. But it’s the same By Lorenzo That he won the 2021 European Championship as a starterThat he won the Napoli championship as Captain a year agowhich is without a shadow of a doubt the best Italian right back aroundSpalletti fielded five reigning European Champions in the starting lineup: Donnarumma, By Lorenzo, Barella, Jorginho e Church. And he had another five at his disposal but – it’s not clear why – he ignored them and excluded them from the national team in recent months: these are Locatelli, Pessina, Florence, Berardi ed Emerson Palmieri they have done very well this year in their club teams, but the coach – unlike his predecessor – has never seen them in his national team.
The truth about the Inter block and the comparison with 2006
Among the fans there is a lot of irony about “Inter block“, and a Barella, Frattesi, Dimarco, Darmian e Sticks (con Unripeunfortunately injured for the European Championship) dominate Serie A unchallenged and a year ago they even reached the Champions League finalcan it really be their fault if they didn’t perform adequately in the national team? There is only one reason: at Inter they play with a precise formationil 3-5-2and they perform at their best in those positions, thanks to a great coach who makes the most of them, which is Simone Inzaghi. Spalletti, however, lined them up totally out of role: as we have already written in recent days, a “block” of a club team in the national team can be considered as such only if those players from that team appear again in the same position in the same formation. Otherwise you have to imagine Marcello Lippi fielding in the 2006 World Cup Cannavaro external midfielder, Zambrotta first striker e Camoranesi director in front of the defense.
Here because we believe that Spalletti should resign: Italy was not eliminated for one episode. She didn’t come out with her head held high against a big team. We would have accepted it, we would have applauded them. The real point is that Spalletti proved inadequatehe was unable to cope with the responsibility of the role, it was done condition from criticism to the first defeat and has failed, in ten months of work, to give the team an identitya choose a form and its basic interpreters, to be replaced only in exceptional cases. Finding yourself in the middle of an important official tournament like a European Championship to do experiments e change three modules in four games revolutionizing even the starting players means be in confusion.
We have been writing it since yesterday and we reiterate it again today: without tragedies, with serenity. Spalletti (and then who chose it) he has to go home. Why Italy is not Malta, It’s not Scotland, it’s not Montenegro. He can’t go out like this at the European Championships, humiliated by the squadsand then the next day everything remains as before as if nothing had happened. As if it were normal. As if no one is guilty. As if it could go like this next time too. Italy is Italy. E He must never make such a fool of himself again. Spalletti must go because it wasn’t up to par with Italye Gravina I’m going.
Let’s start again with Claudio Ranieriand there will be a way and time to address all the other problems of the Federation. But that’s another story: at the National you only need one leader That you value the great footballers we havedo them express it bestli defend it’s li protections when needed, instead use them as a shield how did he do Spalletti yesterday was mean.
Proving inadequate not only from a technical point of view, but also from a human one. He has already lost these guys. And with this group he will never be able to do well again. There is no alternative to the evidence that now must step aside.
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