Average age of 20 and a half for the national team that challenges Luxembourg and Greece. Baldini regenerates the group by focusing on the talents of the future and on returning to the essentials: less social media and more dressing room
The youngest Italy ever – average age 20 and a half – doesn’t need rules, but common sense. Or, rather, the rules are those of a coexistence built on empathy and, therefore, on the desire to share, spaces and interests. In Coverciano, home of the Azzurri, it goes like this: the silhouette of Gigio Donnarumma blends in with a group of twenty-five boys who leave the meeting room like a school group and, like a school group, head towards the training field. Wake up early and, in any case, no later than nine: if breakfast becomes a collective habit, so much the better. Cell phones in the drawer of the strictly double rooms, triple rooms for the three goalkeepers: it is not an imposition, but a free choice to which the Italians who have grown up for the occasion have adapted. Translated: without cell phones as inseparable traveling companions when the ball rests and the video of the things to study is turned off, the empathy and sharing we were talking about increases. The youngest Italy ever is a message, to the world, ours, and not only: Luxembourg and Greece will tell us if the four boys of 2008, the three of 2006, the seven of 2005 and the nine of 2004 will have the energy to give us a lot of curiosity.
Baldini’s philosophy
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“Here there are no rules, but if one makes a mistake he goes home…”, says the person who was called to the bench to make sense of the first time without the third World Cup in a row: the interim coach Silvio Baldini. He, the technical commissioner for 180′, chose the Under 21 and surrounding group plus Gigio Donnarumma, a courageous captain and a captain who asked to be there because the example inspires. “The others in the group that didn’t get the pass to America would have done the same, but – says Gigio – they knew that the coach would focus on his team…”. The youngest Italy ever has the face of Pio Esposito, Pisilli, Palestra, the only ones other than the European champion goalkeeper at Wimbledon to have made their debut with the great national team. But the younger Italy also lives on the adrenaline of Borussia Dortmund’s eighteen-year-olds Inacio, Ruggeri, Mane, on the defensive resourcefulness of Chiarodia from Borussia Moenchengladbach, on the liveliness of Koleosho, an attacking winger from the other half of Paris, the one that doesn’t win the Champions League. In the middle of the field, here are the geometries of Lipani of Sassuolo or of Dagasso of Venezia with the physicality of the Florentine Ndour and the tactical intelligence of Faticanti star of the Juventus Next Gen. Twenty-four kids who don’t stop running or keeping the pace up. But if you lose the ball you have to run (Baldini dixit): this is a rule engraved on the pitch.
