Azzurri striving to bounce back against Swedes
ITALY face an uphill battle to secure a place at next year’s World Cup when they welcome Sweden in Milan today, three days after losing the first play-off 1-0 in Stockholm.
Both the Azzurri and Italian media said before Friday’s game in Sweden that missing the Russiahosted finals was unthinkable for the four-time world champions, who failed to qualify only in 1958 and have played at 18 World Cups.
This however had no effect on a squad which failed to shine throughout the qualifications, losing 3-0 to group winners Spain in September before eking out 1-0 wins against modest Israel and Albania and drawing 1-1 with Macedonia to finish second.
Sweden, meanwhile, beat France 2-1 and then scored 14 goals in the last four games of their pool.
Marco Tardelli, who lifted Italy’s third trophy in 1982, said that La Nazionale were “slow and without ideas,” as they only threatened from Andrea Belotti and Matteo Darmian’s shot against the post.
Sweden were physical and lucky as they won from Jakob Johansson’s deflected shot and hope to clinch their 12th World Cup participation.
The Azzurri found no nice comments in yesterday’s newspapers, with Turin’s Tuttosport titling Enough excuses! – seemingly referring to remarks from coach Gian Piero Ventura about alleged poor refereeing.
Milan’s La Gazzetta dello Sport spoke of an “ugly and confused Italy,” while prompting support from the home crowd today with the headline: San Siro, you figure it.
But Andrea Pirlo, a 2006 world champion who this week ended his playing career, told Sky Sport that he had “never seen a fan score a goal.”
Pirlo also dismissed refereeing talk and urged the team to do more. “It takes quality to win these games,” the star playmaker said.
“The attitude seemed wrong to me. I saw the tendency to let yourself fall down (in tackles).
“In games like this you must go beyond this and give your 100%. These are the games when you see who the real players are.”
Ventura is now desperate for goals after Ciro Immobile, who scored 14 goals from 11 games for Lazio in the Serie A, had no scoring opportunity.
“The speed at which we move the ball could be better and we could improve our play at the same time,” the Ventura said.
“The will to overturn this result will be vital, I hope that we can do that with the help of the crowd and better management of the match.” – dpa