Italians leave ‘ total darkness’ behind
Youthful English a good test for squad revamped after early exit in South Africa
RIO de JANEIRO — South Africa, 2010. Arguably the worst Italian performance since Luciano Pavarotti starred in his only movie, playing — now here’s a stretch — a famous opera singer in 1982’ s lamentable Yes, Giorgio. Or the last time Silvio Berlusconi opened his mouth.
Three and on the plane home. Bottom of a seemingly straightforward group. Shamed and eliminated by Slovakia. Nothing more substantial than a draw from either New Zealand or Paraguay.
The worst official finish at a World Cup ... ever. A sad end to the Marcello Lippi era. Flayed savagely by the Italian press despite injuries to the two key men, Andrea Pirlo and Gigi Buffon.
“Humiliated by Slovakia, time to go home in shame!” read the blazing headline in the pink paper, Gazzetta dello Sport. La Repubblica mourned: “Shame and tears, a nation to be rebuilt.”
La Stampa labelled it: “The blackest page of our footballing history.”
“It’s total darkness,” began Gazzetta’s sombre editorial. “The worst Italy we have ever seen go out. Like Dorian Gray’s mirror, on this afternoon in Johannesburg we saw the picture of an old, defeated team without a style of play or any ideas, outclassed technically and physically by a modest Slovak team.” Holy merda ... Fast- forward to today. Out of the ashes of South Africa, hope. Maybe they’re not on a small list of upper- echelon list of favourites here — Brazil, Argentina, Spain and Germany — but certainly included in an intriguing second cut of contenders. Runner- up at the last Euros, third at the 2013 Confederations Cup, reinvented by the more progressive- thinking, attack- minded Cesare Prandelli.
A headline on a piece penned by The Guardian’s David Hytner maybe summed up his influence best: Cesare Prandelli: The man who made Italy fall in love with the Azzurri again.
Either loyal or lazy, Lippi died with a tired old team that had come through for him four years earlier in Germany. Prandelli has introduced kids like Ciro Immobile, Marco Veratti and Lorenzo Insigne into the national team setup, sweeping aside many of the cobwebs. Only a half- dozen players remain from the creaky embarrassment of South Africa.
The Azzurri open their latest World Cup quest Saturday in the sauna that is Manaus ( take your malaria pills!), situated on the Amazon River, on a pitch that from all reports resembles a patch of ground housing a nuclear waste plant, against the habitually over- estimated English. Still, it promises to be a tricky fixture, given the fresh legs and openly confident, almost defiant attitude of the Three Lions.
“I think we have moved ahead of Italy in the last two years,” Wayne Rooney boldly declared earlier this week, hearkening back to a loss on penalties at the 2012 Euros. “The squad we have is youthful with a lot of energy and excitement. It will be interesting to see how we have moved on and progressed.”
Prandelli has worked wonders but make no mistake, this is hugely important tournament for him, having recently signed a two- year contract extension ( he earns $ 4.3 million this year, third highest of any World Cup manager) that takes him through euro 2016. Now in his third year in charge of the project, this is what he and the Italian soccer federation have been aiming towards. Here. Now.
“At the start of every tournament there is always pessimism in Italy. That’s how we are,” the boss said of the customary skepticism to Italy’s chances back in the Boot. “Maybe psychologically we need this feeling of insecurity and criticism. I am calm because we have worked well.”
One of the more interesting options put forth this week has been that Prandelli would be better served cohesively and tactically using the aforementioned Immobile as a firstchoice striker in lieu of nut- job Mario Balotelli.
Well, certainly nothing against Immobile but ignoring Balotelli’s immense, if often hard to harness, talent — at least until he throws his first major hissy- fit — would be sheer lunacy. As Prandelli knows. Sure Balotelli has it in him to go off the charts or off the rails, depending on how he rolled out of bed in the morning but the Why Always Me? man is an authentic potential match winner and Prandelli, more than any other coach, has been able to sculpt the most out of a flawed piece of marble.
What must be worrisome from an Italian standpoint is that those defensive fortifications, the historic hallmark of Italian football, ain’t what they used to be.
“Can Italy win the World Cup?” asked Pirlo. “We have what it takes to go far. The important thing is to believe, sacrifice ourselves, work hard and the results can arrive.”