Bardhi responded to Immobile’s goal in the 47th minute in the 81st minute. Many opportunities wasted by the Azzurri (including a post from Tonali), now we have to beat Ukraine on Tuesday at the San Siro
– Skopje
Spalletti’s road to the European Championship immediately becomes complicated. North Macedonia is our kryptonite, we just can’t cope, and it’s still our fault. In Palermo we made the wrong way of attacking, here failing to control a match that should have been ours, after Immobile’s goal at the start of the second half, with ways for counterattacks that we never attempted. So we even risked losing, dangerously lowering ourselves until Bardhi’s deserved equalizer, from a free kick, in the final. A 1-1 which is doubly in trouble, for morale and because in the meantime Ukraine held England to a 1-1 draw (who had scored seven goals against the Macedonians). It doesn’t take an abacus to understand that between now and November we have to win them all to avoid the other nightmare called playoffs. There was little time, but we also saw very little of Spalletti’s play. Paradoxically, his colleagues, Di Lorenzo and Politano, were among the least convincing. All below standard except, perhaps, Barella, no one who lasted 90 minutes. Again the curse of the coach who doesn’t win on his debut. Another cloud on the blue sky.
MACEDONIA CLOSED
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It is immediately clear that Italy is having some problems finding itself. The system is 4-3-3, perhaps too classic, with Tonali and Barella as midfielders without any pretense of “shoulder strikes”: no one supports Cristante, the former AC Milan player immediately goes to press high on the throw-in from the Macedonian goal, but it is of little use because , almost always, Dimitrievski leans towards the throw. North Macedonia opts for a very closed 3-4-1-2: the defense is compact at five, then, having won the ball back, the two wingers are released, especially Alioski on the left, while Bardhi navigates the midfield to open spaces to Miovski and Elmas. Some changes for the Azzurri come from Di Lorenzo on the right and above all from Dimarco who, on the left, ends up where he started with Mancini. He runs, crosses, crosses, shots, everything at speed, perhaps a mistake on a diagonal entry towards the goal: he chooses the support, he could have shot. But that’s what hurts the most. The two attacking wingers Politano and Zaccagni were too static, Immobile wandered in the center without finding the right support, with the defenders immediately pressing him.
TONALI CHE PALO
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The match opens after the quarter of an hour, when the Azzurri begin to find spaces for insertions. They are not the famous “holes” of Coverciano, here Macedonia does not allow too many spaces on the restart. Better shots are therefore needed: the tight triangles or the beautiful intuition of Barella who launches Tonali onto a motorway. Great shot and post, then the ball hits the goalkeeper who stops it. Tonali finds himself well in these forays. It’s the 22nd minute, it could have been the turning point, but instead the Azzurri only came close twice more with Cristante, first with a header that grazed the post, then with a tap-in in the area with a save from Dimitrievski. But they also began to concede something.
DANGERS ON THE COUNTER-ATTACK
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North Macedonia, in fact, knows how to close well. She’s organised. He never gets out of balance. He waits for nothing more than a stolen ball to start again with few men but very fast. The trigger is often Alioski, the best. From the left he starts like a beauty and, in the most dangerous action, after having snatched the ball from Politano and having traveled about fifty metres, he finds the cross to the millimeter for Miovski who heads just past the post. We still have possession but the two Macedonian counterattacks force us not to let our guard down.
CIRO, BUT THEN…
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He chooses Spalletti well in the interval, Zaniolo for the feeble Politano, and after less than two minutes he is rewarded by the descent of the former Roma player who wreaks havoc in the area: from his action comes Barella’s great shot over the crossbar. But Immobile is ready to head into the corner where Dimitrieski can’t reach. He didn’t score from action from Switzerland to the European Championship, June 2021. What matters is the result, but something more could have been expected, the “holes” that Macedonia necessarily digs by changing the structure, not the system, and raising the center of gravity to look for the equal. Here, Italy prefers to tame the match, control it, without taking risks, but ends up lowering itself too much. And Macedonia believes in it, with Bardhi small but technical and indomitable, forcing Italy to resort to fouls from the edge. On one of these it is Bardhi who scores a free kick from Maradona or Platini, you name it, very angled and unstoppable, which knocks out Donnarumma: 1-1 and a new nightmare. But we asked for it.
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