Long analysis on the columns of Republic from Paul Condo regarding the elimination of the national team from Euro 2024. The journalist focuses in particular on Spalletti and what he missed in this competition: “Spalletti is a complex man who gets to you over time and everyday life, he is the drop that digs the stone as demonstrated by a career in which he has always grown, up to the masterpiece in Naples. The obstinacy with which he proposed poor Di Lorenzo was born from the fact that he was the only one who understood him completely; a joke, it backfired on him and amen, but it is clear that at a certain point he lacked the anchors, and he went to look for them where he could find them and in the debutants, from Calafiori to Fagioli, on which we should reach an agreement. The disqualification has been served: can we consider his debt paid – from September the same will also apply to Tonali – or will the stigma have to accompany him forever?
It wasn’t just the elimination against Switzerland, which by memory is the worst performance by the Azzurri in the last 25 years. It was the entire European Championship in which “the heroes and giants” went down four times out of four, in which Spain spared us a goleada, in which Zaccagni’s miracle in the 98th minute avoided – without doing us any favors – the exit in the group stage. In which the Azzurri awaited Marciniak’s final whistle on Saturday as if it were a liberation, because they couldn’t wait to get out of that nightmare. To go home.
And so Spalletti can stay, let’s not back down a single meter in the consideration of his qualities as a coach: but let’s add the humility and sense of proportion that every good coach must use given the little time available. If then the commission of club experts cited by Gravina (Marotta, Giuntoli, Sartori and others) is capable, flying high for once, of shortening the gap between the Primavera and the first teams, the great work of the coordinator of the Azzurri youth teams Maurizio Viscidi – countless titles and finals – could finally prove useful. It’s about time”.