After watching the Italian national team’s disastrous exit from the World Cup, I could not help but think that such a flaccid performance was required not just once, but twice. Why? The myth of the 2006 champions has punished la Nazionale for far too long, and such a powerful story like being ‘i campioni del mondo’ needed to be really shaken out of everyone’s minds.
What is this myth? It is the continued idea that the 2006 team was perfect and the same formula would produce similar, if not victorious results.
I am not saying the great players of the winning campaign four years ago were not great. They were, and their lifting of the trophy was deserved. However, the players of Germany 2006, and more importantly, the near identical tactics to go with them, were so apocalyptically bad in the following tournaments that they needed to be unequivocally humiliated.
But to shatter the continued reliance on essentially the same team, this ridiculous humbling had to happen twice. What are the twin catastrophes?
The first requisite effort was the 2008 European championship where gli Azzurri whimpered out of the penalty shoot out with Spain and scarcely made an impact on anybody’s mind, and the second was the three winless games of South Africa 2010.
Why suffer the pain of two defeats? Why not learn from 2008 and rebuild to be competitive in two years time? They probably should and would have, but for one reason: In 2008, the exit was a tragic.
Italy had a team of then world class players: Luca Toni couldn’t stop scoring for Bayern, Pirlo could still dictate a game from the midfield like nobody else (except for Xavi), Buffon was superman, the creative attacker Cassano had been recalled, De Rossi could run and tackle his way through a small army, etc.
Italy had an excuse, and it wasn’t their average players (as it was most recently). It was a penalty shoot out that had them eliminated after all, a bit of luck — tragedy. Not that Spain didn’t fully and overwhelmingly deserve their victory, but Italy weren’t consistently outplayed by mediocre teams as in 2010.
1 win, 2 draws and a loss against France, Spain, Romania and Holland in 2008 is surely better than 2 draws and a loss against Paraguay, New Zealand, and Slovakia in 2010.
But in 2010 the exit was tragicomic. Why? The same core that failed in 2008 was given the green light to fail again. The starting XI of Thursday’s match contained 5 non-2006 players, and had Buffon and Pirlo been healthy, that number would have been only 3.
The result of the reliance on them was summed up midway through the first half when Lippi was seen giving instructions to a panting Gattuso. This is the same player who ran away Cristiano Ronaldo’s threat in the 2007 champions league, now huffing for breath a third of the way through a game — tragicomic.
Pirlo was the only 2006 player who looked like he could still make a game his own, as Italy only came alive for the thirty minutes (in three games) he ran the show from the midfield.
But let’s not take Pirlo’s inspiring play and lament, “Oh, if only Pirlo had been healthy, surely Italy would have reached the semis at least.” Absolutely not. This is the exact same interpretation of 2008, and here one cannot view Italy’s loss as a tragedy.
But far more importantly, the tactics of 2006 were used massively inappropriately, and hopeful the disastrous performances will prevent this from happening again with immediate effect. While Grosso, Materazzi, Cannavaro, Zambrotta and Buffon in 2006 will go down as one of the best defense units in World Cup history, attempting to use the same “defense first” idea with a outrageously weaker back line leads to 5 goals in three games against average sides.
It is as if Lippi took the stereotype of Italy being defense-minded seriously, even when it clearly hurt their chances. Similarly, the continued traditional reliance on Juventus players, even in a year where they cannot even qualify for the Champions League, was similarly appalling.
While I do not wish to join the chorus of “Balotelli + Cassano in Nazionale” voices, I will say there were numerous teams with Italian players on them that produced better results all season than the Juve group, and they at least merited a chance with gli Azzurri.
This is not to say the entire 2006 class minus Pirlo must leave before Euro 2012. De Rossi and Buffon especially will still be crucial players.
But this is a moment of catharsis for Italy. The ridiculous tactical and defensive choices, the anti-creative attacking selection, the reliance on 2006 veterans, the belief that Juventus = Italy — all of this can now end without dissent from the media, fans or the team itself.
This is why the catastrophe had to happen twice. Once was not enough to arouse the recognition of the problems in near everything from players to coaching. Two times surely will awaken everyone to how the myths of 2006 preemptively ruined the two successive chances for major honors for La Nazionale.
I largely agree with your points but I’d say the Euros forced Italy to reappoint Lippi which meant that all of Lippi’s discriminations and grudges were going to haunt the 2010 version. Players who testified like Miccoli were never going to get a chance which certainly limited the attack options. That being said, Lippi is certainly one of the great coaches of all time so maybe his warts were worth it. My thinking is that it would have better to have left it with 2006 though. I’d prefer someone like Delio Rossi or Luigi Delneri for the Brazilian campaign.
Scott,
You are right the failures of Euro 2008 (Italy had objective of at least semi-final) forced the Azzurri to hire Lippi again. Donadoni couldn’t motivate or earn the same level of respect as a tactician who won the World Cup 2006 of course. However, there were many issues with the Azzurri which go beyond those mentioned in this piece.
I think Donadoni failed in making drastic changes to the side considering he brought back C. Panucci who is a player at odds with Lippi and therefore had no hope of playing for Azzurri once Lippi took over again. Besides Panucci who played in centre-back position alongside Chiellini due to Cannavaro’s injury, the only main additions under Donadoni were Di Natale, Chiellini and of course Cassano who would not be picked by Lippi.
Lippi actually made more changes to the team than Donadoni as he excluded Toni and Grosso both of whom were picked by Donadoni.
Hello Sebastian,
I agree with some of the points you made but I would say Lippi did rely on a small core composed of Cannavaro, Buffon and Pirlo (the latter 2 unfortunately injured and missed most of WC2010) as well as Zambrotta. Cannavaro was clearly the wrong choice to captain and even make the squad. Looking at the starters against Slovakia, one can tell that only Cannavaro, Zambrotta, De Rossi, Gattuso and Iaquinta were in WC2006 squad and Iaquinta was bench while De Rossi played little due to his elbow during the US match. Gattuso played his only 45 min against Slovakia as he didn’t feature before.
Off the bench, only Pirlo was part of the WC2006 team as Maggio and Quagi were not in Germany. This means a total of 6 players from Germany 2006 played a role in the Slovakia match. The main problem was not relying on some of the WC2006 veterans but rather picking the wrong ones. Cannavaro should not have been on the team.
As controversial as this might seem, but many teams are beginning to rely on the Azzurri strategy of the 1990s when a strong defensive line with pressure all over the pitch to recover the ball and a couple of creative players are employed. Just check Brazil and even Dunga admitted he will rely on Cesar, Lucio and Maicon to lead Brazil to victory in WC2010. And even a closer look at Mourinho’s Inter shows that the Nerazzurri despite not relying on any Italians in the starting lineup (Balotelli kept arguing with Mourinho over the season, Santon has been injured and both Toldo and Materazzi are too old) still used a system inspired by the Italian sides of the 1990s. Mourinho relied on solid defenders, strong defensive midfield, pressure and recovering the ball and a couple of talented players such as Sneijder and Eto’o as well as a scorer like D. Milito.
The problem is Italy could no longer rely on the strategy often used by the previous Azzurri sides because Lippi excluded all creative talents (Cassano, Totti, Del Piero, Balotelli, Miccoli & Rossi for various reasons) while the defensive line led by Cannavaro was lacking in communication, group effort and not on the same page.
Below you can find 2 pieces I wrote for http://www.SerieATalk.com and which cover the Azzurri:
http://www.serieatalk.com/south-africa-2010-analysis-reasons-behind-italys-struggles/2588
http://www.serieatalk.com/rating-italys-players-in-south-africa-2010/2613
I can be reached on Twitter @RamiSoufi for further comments or discussions.