LONDON – That’s the thing about tournament football. You deserve to make it to the finals for what you have shown throughout the tournament. And based on your opponent’s dominance in the semi-finals, you may not qualify for the final.
Yes, both things can be true.
“We’ve never played such a good team that hurt us so much,” defender Leonardo Bonucci said after Italy’s 4-2 penalty shootout win. “They dominated us; they are an exceptional team with a fantastic manager.”
It’s not so much that Italy were long beaten by Spain in Tuesday night’s semifinal at Wembley – they were – it’s the fact that we saw so little that made them the standout team of Euro 2020 so far. And Italy will have to give food for thought before the final.
The challenge for Italy boss Roberto Mancini is to figure out how much of it is Spain exceptional and how much is down to Italy’s weaknesses. Spain was a nightmare for the Azzurri – one they are unlikely to face again.
The most notable difference came in the middle of the park. Spain circled around this Italian team, which by that time dominated both possession and speed against most opponents. The aggressive up-tempo press didn’t do much either. When it delivered turnover in the last third, there wasn’t enough end product, possibly because it’s hard to be quick when you’ve been chasing the ball for the last five minutes. So when he created chances – witness Nicolo Barella needing ages to take a useless shot with Unai Simon off his line or Emerson clipping the crossbar – it was often with a blurred mind.
Mancini himself admitted it after the game: “Spain are an exceptional team. We tried to match them in midfield, but they are masters of the game of possession.”
Luis Enrique’s decision is not to start with a traditional centre-forward such as lvaro Morata – instead choosing a fluid, fleet-footed trio (Dani Olmo, Ferran Torres and Mikel Ouarzabal) to take opponents face to face. Didn’t like anything else. -A – Confused Azurri for the most part of the game. When he took the lead, it was against the run of play. And it was clear that if they were to stop, they would have to dial back the clock and play the kind of football that Italian teams built their reputations on, but which Mancini has since taken over. Was.
This meant sitting deep, absorbing pressure, playing defense and counter, blocking passing lanes and frustrating the opposition, turning Spain’s possession into sterile possession. Others did this to good effect in the group stages against Spain—Sweden and Poland, for example—and they had crooked, battle-hardened warriors in the rear to do so. Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini are more comfortable in these situations: they absolutely adore them, as evidenced by Chiellini’s jagged grin and joking horseplay with Jordi Alba.
The problem was, she was. They both love trench warfare, tight spaces, gruesome deep stands. Nobody else does.
And, in fact, they don’t even like it that much, not with these peers around them anyway.
“After we scored, they pushed us back,” Bonucci said after the postmatch. “They created two great chances because we were too deep. Part of it is our fault, maybe; part of it is that they were just as good.”
Mancini built this team to defend the top of the pitch. Midfielders are producers or box-to-box people; They are not destroyers. It is not in this team’s DNA to play this way that it is in the nature of BTS to play Scandinavian death metal or Lil Nas X to record Christian country music. And without the constant outlet of bombing the wounded Leonardo Spinazola’s flank, they wouldn’t even have had the customary Plan B to take them out. Italy needs the ball – either at the feet of Jorginho and Marco Verratti or from a turnover high up the pitch – to be effective. Spain rejected both of them, and they became off-brand versions of previous Italy sides.
But as we said above, there is good news: Italy will not play Spain again. Matchups matter. And whether Italy take on England or Denmark on Sunday, they will face a side that doesn’t hog the ball. Declan Rice and Calvin Phillips are not Sergio Busquets and Coke. Neither, for the avoidance of doubt, are Thomas Delaney and Pierre-एmile Hjberg.
This is the message Mancini will take on board and share with his players. You will never be put through it again. Whatever happens in the final, it will not happen.
Equally, there’s something to be said for being able to take it out until the penalty kicks in. Be it Gianluigi Donnarumma’s defence, Bonucci’s leadership or Chiellini’s approval, it’s not something he has had to do till this stage, except perhaps for the last minutes against Belgium.
And a lot can be said about winning a nervous system meat grinder otherwise known as a penalty shootout. Donnarumma revealed that he and Italy’s goalkeeping coaches had spent a lot of time studying Spain’s spot kick takers. Where do they look, how do they approach their run-ups, what are their habits – anything to gain an edge. However, as Donnarumma herself admitted, in the end you have to marry study with your instinct if you want to avoid punishment.
Not everyone is as icy as Jorginho, who said after winning the winning penalty: “How did I do it? I just told myself to breathe. Once, twice, three times, shut the world down. And then What to do when you went out and practiced.”
Shootout wins and deep, grit-and-gravel defense builds the confidence you need if the original game plan doesn’t work, as it did against Spain. Because, to paraphrase Mike Tyson, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
Italy punches. And did not go down. So see you again on Sunday. Certainly stronger than you ever saw him against Spain, than you have ever seen him.
“We made it to the final day of the tournament, and it’s huge,” Mancini concluded. “But we’re not...”