In the aftermath of the national team’s debacle, eliminated from Euro 2024 in the round of 16 by Switzerland, Maurizio Crosetti expresses himself in a harsh manner, against the footballers and against Luciano Spalletti. In his editorial for The Republic here’s what we read: “Is the past or the future more distant? It takes a lot of memory to remember a national team that was worse than this one, and a lot of imagination to imagine one at least a little better, which doesn’t risk being left out of the third World Cup. See you next time , in two years, there will be 48 finalists, but Europe will only have three more places.
The Azzurri arrived among the last to Euro 2024 and they leave first, miraculously saved by the Croats, beaten by the Spaniards, frightened by the Albanians and humiliated by the Swiss. The real anomaly was the cup three years ago, not this punishment. We have slipped to the edges of the continent, let alone the planet. We don’t make three passes in a row. We have a coach, perhaps not yet a coach, who says “gnaw the meter”, “recompose”, “morality”, always changing the module and players to finally arrive at the worst formation: perhaps this is his liquid football? Or liquefied? At a certain point the ghost of Ventura appeared: he was smiling”.