A lacklustre performance saw Italy beaten 2-0 by a far superior Swiss team at the UEFA Euro 2024 championship last night.
There’s not much to say that’s positive about the Italian football team at the moment. Easily beaten 2-0 by Switzerland in Berlin, last night, the defending champions went down without a fight.
There appeared to be zero motivation, and any skills the players had seem to have to taken an earlier flight home. It was an embarrassing showing which won’t do much for the coach Spalletti. His football worth has just taken a nosedive.
“The team were timid in terms of the intensity of the game,” he said. “We didn’t do a good job, we weren’t able to maintain a high level of intensity.
“When you are not able to win the ball back, given we don’t possess pace at the back, you have to afford them space.”
The Italian team one only one match in this tournament.
Italy failed to qualify for the World Cup in Qatar, and Spalletti only had ten matches in which to reshape a winning team. He failed. No doubt there will be questions for him to answer from the Italian football association. He was asked the pertinent one straight after the match.
The 65-year-old was quizzed about whether he believed he could stay on as national team boss.
“That question is only natural, don’t feel guilty about asking me,” he said. “But that comes to the crux of the matter, it doesn’t change anything for me.
“I have the responsibility for what has happened. I picked the players, and of course this is part of a process where I need to get to know players.”
Players must also take responsibility
Whilst the coach is right to shoulder the blame, some of it must also fall on to the players. Highly-paid professionals should not be making bad passes, or show such poor decision-making and singular lack of verve and dedication to the task. Little wonder we saw Italy beaten so decisively.
Down 1-0 at half-time, the second half was only 13 minutes old before the Swiss doubled their lead.
“That goal at the start of the second half cut our legs, we weren’t very incisive Spalletti said after the game.
“What made the difference is the pace, we had a pace that was too inferior to them in the first half. Even in the individual players there was a different pace.”
Italy had a sum total of two half-decent attacks at goal in the remainder of the match. The desire to win simply wasn’t there.
There weren’t many fans to apologise to either at the end of the match. Italian fans were heading for the exits long before the final whistle. Those left in their seats must have been in shock at their team’s insipid performance; it’s the only reason I can think of for why they hadn’t left as well.
