Self-criticism by Luciano Spalletti immediately after Spain-Italy brings with it doubts and question marks on the continuation of Italy’s path. If it is true, as Buffon says, that defeats are easier to manage than victories, that missteps lead to reflection and work, Italy in the aftermath of the deserved defeat against the Red Furies found herself having to ask herself why she is still so distant from Spain.
Nobody expected it, not even the coach who, to explain his team’s performance, focused everything on their precarious physical condition. On a team, the same as five days earlier, that didn’t have the pace to avoid the blows of Nico Williams and Yamal, the crashes of Fabian Ruiz and the competitive fury of Cucurella.
Under the eyes of King Felipe the best of de la Fuente’s Spain was seen. Under those of over 30 thousand Azzurri fans present at the Arena AufSchalke Spalletti found himself in the worst Italy of his management. Because it’s true that we also lost badly at Wembley, but in October Italy had created some chances against England. She had taken the lead with Gianluca Scamacca (her only goal in blue), she had deluded herself that eight months after that defeat the level had risen. It is not so. As soon as the bar is raised Italy goes haywire, it doesn’t have the quality necessary to start again with continuity.
Spalletti admitted in Gelsenkirchen that he made a mistake in confirming Dortmund’s eleven. Words resulting from an individually disappointing performance: this Di Lorenzo is not the Captain of his Napoli and will be rested to avoid the risk of another performance like the one on Thursday evening, Jorginho replaced after forty-five minutes did not seem like the right helmsman to drag the ship out of the storm, not even for a minute.
But how many changes should you make against Croatia? Which form to adopt? As after Albania, in the first post-Spain training session the national team met at the Hemberg Stadion in the morning so as to give the team half a day off. And even if on the pitch there were only those who on Thursday evening did not take the field from the first minute (nor from the 46th), the team was deployed with the usual 4-2-3-1 with Bellanova as full-back and Raspadori as attacking midfielder. Whether it is a sign of continuity we will only begin to understand this evening, but in the meantime at the Arena AufSchalke the arrival of Raspadori has given the team back that bit of aggressiveness that had been totally missing before. So why not a 3-5-2 with the Napoli striker as second striker and Retegui in place of a disappointing Scamacca? It’s a hypothesis, one of those doubts that grip the technical commissioner. Which seemed to have ended up in the attic after the 2-1 in Dortmund.