Against Northern Ireland to book a place in the final against Wales or Bosnia. We are stronger but we must not rush and let ourselves be anxious if the goal doesn’t arrive immediately
A bit of envy is inevitable towards France and Brazil who compete this evening in one of the old, dear and now very rare luxury friendlies with an overseas focus. We don’t. We still have to conquer a World Cup that has given us wonderful nights and indelible memories, but has been rejecting us with disdain for a while. In other times the match against Northern Ireland would have been a match “to prepare for the World Cup”. Everything has changed: against the Northern Irish, absent since 1986, and certainly not a power especially far from Belfast, we are playing half of America because then, after getting through this first final, there would be another one. At this point alibis (Norway), guilt, ct and predestination no longer matter. The only thing that matters is winning the World Cup. There’s no point in being snobbish, from today it’s all finals (here is our focus on Northern Ireland).
distant past
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Gattuso is right: we are talking about Bergamo, not Cardiff and Zenica, let’s apply selective memory. In 2022 his mind was already on Portugal, without however having reckoned with Trajkovski. That dramatic knockout left splinters of fear, but it is also a lesson. Since Alcaraz can lose to Korda, and Italy to North Macedonia, woe betide you if you have already won. Now we know. We are stronger than the British, if we give one hundred percent we will beat them, but the longer we extend the time the more we will give strength to those who have already won by winning these playoffs and have nothing to lose. Let’s forget the four World Cups, the two European Championships and the finals, it is perhaps the best way to recover the past.
direct the game
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It won’t be a joke. Today only in the Champions League do we regularly witness goalscoring goals, but the clubs train all year round, while the national teams meet again after four months and any technical-tactical discussion leaves the time it finds. Unless they have come up with who knows what strategy in Belfast, the match seems to be completely decipherable: they don’t even think about keeping the ball, with an average possession of 30 percent, they close with two crowded and physical lines that are not irreproachable, they fight for every ball as if it were life or death, and they start again with throws and runs. Plus they are masters of long balls into the area, whether placed or not. We have an additional enemy called fear and we tend to weaken at the first difficulty. There are no miracle recipes: common sense says that we must not rush, but that it is necessary to score as soon as possible to tilt the match downhill. Using your head, and not to hit.
Italy with goals
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We are, unhistorically, a goal-scoring team. Even with the little ones we weren’t used to the binges, our top scorer has still been Gigi Riva since the 70s. In Gattuso’s six games, however, we scored 19 goals, of which 14 in the second half (7 in the last quarter of an hour, 4 beyond the 90th minute). With the same anti-historical sense, we conceded 4 goals from Israel and 4 from Norway in 90 minutes: when ever? An unequivocal image of character, determination, desire, but also of lines and head that are not impeccable if there is something to manage or defend. Gattuso chose the 3-5-2, not his ideal system, because this is what he can afford: a team that needs to close better and doesn’t have an abundance of full back fours. The strength is world top Donnarumma, Calafiori as a play defender, Tonali as a Premier all-rounder and the Kean-Retegui attack duo who, in this cycle, have scored 9 goals (4 for the Viola, 5 for the Italian-Argentine). Plus, Pio Esposito who at twenty has veteran sensitivity and a unique sense of position. And then Raspadori with a thousand roles. They must fear us.
worker spirit
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If we look at the names, we are from the top leagues, they are from English B, there is no competition. But it’s an illusion. This is a proletarian match, to be won with the old blue spirit, with the group, as it was with Bearzot and Lippi, not by chance the coach’s tutelary deity. Mancini had created a team with superior technique which remains a heresy in a period of crisis: the last World Cup in 2014, now North America 2026 at risk, yet in 2021 we were the strongest by far. Mancini worked for three years on the project, Gattuso is in his sixth month, including the one at the restaurant, a traveling internship to compensate for the loneliness to which he was relegated by the lack of sensitivity of the League. This is Italy as a midfielder as the coach’s life was. The embroidery comes after the result.
our football
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We are going with a team that is genuinely not to be despised, even if the usual understandable skepticism looms large. We defend ourselves with Donnarumma in goal, and Mancini, Bastoni (the only doubt) and Calafiori: in this case Scalvini will take over. On the sides Politano and Dimarco, anything but defensive. A midfield with Locatelli between Barella and Tonali is European. And then those two, Kean-Retegui, up front. We are not a big team, we are not France, Spain and England, not even Portugal, Germany and Norway, the pursuers. But, from Holland to Croatia, the scenario is fluid and we can fit in like Belgium, Switzerland, Montella’s Turkey. It’s difficult to think that, with sixteen European teams ahead, Italy is seventeenth. The danger lies in not being able to impose our football and allowing ourselves to be dragged into the dirty game that they are preparing. We see the playoffs as an opportunity to affirm our superiority and we will take this World Cup.
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