The Italian team must 'transform' if they don't want to become former champions soon.

Pale Blue

When sending Mattia Zaccagni onto the field in the 81st minute, perhaps coach Spalletti did not expect that the Lazio midfielder would become a hero, helping Italy overcome a very narrow gap to continue. Who is Zaccagni? The midfielder born in 1995 is playing in Serie A, his name is only limited to the borders of Italy. Zaccagni even had to wait until the last minute to know whether he would be able to play in EURO 2024 or not, when he had previously only played for the national team 5 times, without scoring any goals.

The Italian team escaped with a "card up their sleeve". However, how bad must it be that the reigning EURO champions need a second-rate player like Zaccagni to escape defeat?

"Italian football is lacking, or rather, there are no world- class names. Currently, Gianluigi Donnarumma is the only outstanding player," Zvonimir Boban, a legendary midfielder who played for AC Milan, affirmed. Coaches like Jose Mourinho or Carlo Ancelotti also share the same opinion: the current Italian team only consists of very... ordinary names. That is not purely due to the transfer value of the entire Italian team being only around 705 million euros, far behind England (1.52 billion euros), France (1.23 billion euros) and Spain (905 million euros), but also the quality of Italy in each position is very low.

Italy team happy to escape against Croatia

Spalletti's men struggled to beat Albania and were comprehensively defeated by Spain, unable to advance beyond the halfway line. Against Croatia, Italy were all but defeated, before Zaccagni struck with a moment the 29-year-old is unlikely to repeat at EURO 2024.

C H O T S PALLETTI

Italy's EURO championship 3 years ago was a combination of 3 factors: a squad of players that effectively mixed experience (Leonardo Bonucci, Giorgio Chiellini) and youth (Donnarumma, Nicolo Barella, Federico Chiesa), key players who were in top form at the same time (typically Chiesa, Barella, Donnarumma and Jorginho), and luck - an indispensable factor to win the EURO.

However, the reality of the group stage shows that the Italian team only has luck, when they surpassed Croatia thanks to making fewer mistakes. As for performance, it is difficult to point out who is the "locomotive" of the blue team. Donnarumma is the most outstanding, but in fact, a team with all the players being average, only having an excellent goalkeeper, is it worth calling a championship candidate!

It is difficult to blame Coach Spalletti, when most of his students, especially in attack, are not good enough to operate the game. Spalletti's philosophy is not much different from Roberto Mancini - who once brought Italy to the top of EURO. Both prefer fast, wide attacking football, creating breakthroughs on the flanks, and dominating the second line. However, 2 years ago, Coach Mancini's students, at the very least, still had Ciro Immobile - a striker who won the European Golden Shoe award. Coach Spalletti only had the mid-level duo Gianluca Scamacca and Mateo Retegui, while Chiesa was just a "shadow".

The attack is too weak, so Italy must rely on the defense to find goals. Two of the "Azzurri" 3 goals at EURO 2024 were scored or assisted by defenders. This is of course not a stable source of goals for Italy to hope to defeat Switzerland - the team that almost pushed the host Germany to second place in the group.

Italy defeated Switzerland 3-0 at EURO 2020, but that was in the past. Xherdan Shaqiri and his teammates played more solidly and confidently. Switzerland was the team that indirectly forced Italy to watch the 2022 World Cup... on TV, when they ranked higher in the qualifying round thanks to 2 draws. Switzerland does not have an abundance of stars, but has a clear, scientific style of play, both pressing and counter-attacking. It will be a battle of wits worth watching between Spalletti and Murat Yakin - who is 16 years younger than the coach of the Italian team. In the past, Spalletti was very good at "cutting his coat according to his cloth" at teams like AS Roma or Napoli. What about this time?

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/doi-tuyen-y-phai-lot-xac-neu-khong-muon-som-thanh-cuu-vuong-185240625231100349.htm