Azzurri Thread (77 Viewers)
- Thread starter Marceℓℓo
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Thought Italy played well against a very talented French squad. It's kind of ridiculous how much depth that French team has at the moment, and most of their talent is top tier.
Caldara, Chiesa, and Mandragora are legit. Caldara & Chiesa are going to be world class players IMO, and Mandragora really impressed me at times, the penalty was a bit soft, but he bullied Pogba on a few occasions in midfield. I thought the Italian midfield controlled the French mids for most of the game. Jorginho is amazing at clogging up passing lanes and his passing speaks for itself. Pellegrini is very talented, but he tries to be a bit too fancy at times, if he can clean that up and look for safer options with his passes more often it'll serve him well. Having the intent to pull of a killer pass is good, but making the solid passes that help build up the attack are also extremely important, he needs to slow it down at times and read the situation better.
From an attacking standpoint, I feel like Berardi was very anonymous in the first half, but started to play a lot better in the 2nd. Although I don't know if it is a lack of confidence or what at the moment, but he was looking for passes in situations where he should be shooting. There were two prime examples of this, where he was in a great position to shoot, with time and space but he looked for a difficult pass to link play up. Don't think he's good enough to be a regular in the national team right now. Balo played solid, he should have buried that free header. He's also a bit too selfish at times still, there were times in the game against Saudi Arabia where he should have found the guy making a run, but kept it himself, and the same thing happened today. Chiesa was making a ton of good runs, but Balotelli was in that shoot first mentality. As I said previously, Chiesa is a very good player, he should move to a bigger club like Napoli, or Roma and work to take that step up to world class. Don't think he'd be ready for a team like Juve yet, but Roma or Napoli would provide a nice challenge for him. Even Inter.
Defensively I think we have a bit of a problem. Specifically with the fullbacks. MDS looked abysmal today, very casual, hesitant, rarely supported Chiesa or linked up with him. It was basically Chiesa against Pavard & Dembele all game. D'Ambrosio is another depth defender at best. Not that I think he's terrible, I just don't think he's smart enough to play consistently in the national team. Spinazzola & Conti need to get healthy and stay healthy to add some quality to the mix. CB's are in good shape with Rugani, Caldara, and Romagnoli. Hopefully Bonucci has enough left in the tank to let those guys mature a little, and take some pressure off. As for GK, my choice would be Perin, with Donnaruma #2 and Sirigu #3.
Overall, there is still a big gap between Italy and the top teams like France, Germany, Spain etc. But the team is in a good position, lots of young talent coming through all over the pitch. The goal for Euro 2020 should be a Semi-Final, which I think is do-able with Mancini.
The game against the Dutch will be a better test of where we are at IMO.
Caldara, Chiesa, and Mandragora are legit. Caldara & Chiesa are going to be world class players IMO, and Mandragora really impressed me at times, the penalty was a bit soft, but he bullied Pogba on a few occasions in midfield. I thought the Italian midfield controlled the French mids for most of the game. Jorginho is amazing at clogging up passing lanes and his passing speaks for itself. Pellegrini is very talented, but he tries to be a bit too fancy at times, if he can clean that up and look for safer options with his passes more often it'll serve him well. Having the intent to pull of a killer pass is good, but making the solid passes that help build up the attack are also extremely important, he needs to slow it down at times and read the situation better.
From an attacking standpoint, I feel like Berardi was very anonymous in the first half, but started to play a lot better in the 2nd. Although I don't know if it is a lack of confidence or what at the moment, but he was looking for passes in situations where he should be shooting. There were two prime examples of this, where he was in a great position to shoot, with time and space but he looked for a difficult pass to link play up. Don't think he's good enough to be a regular in the national team right now. Balo played solid, he should have buried that free header. He's also a bit too selfish at times still, there were times in the game against Saudi Arabia where he should have found the guy making a run, but kept it himself, and the same thing happened today. Chiesa was making a ton of good runs, but Balotelli was in that shoot first mentality. As I said previously, Chiesa is a very good player, he should move to a bigger club like Napoli, or Roma and work to take that step up to world class. Don't think he'd be ready for a team like Juve yet, but Roma or Napoli would provide a nice challenge for him. Even Inter.
Defensively I think we have a bit of a problem. Specifically with the fullbacks. MDS looked abysmal today, very casual, hesitant, rarely supported Chiesa or linked up with him. It was basically Chiesa against Pavard & Dembele all game. D'Ambrosio is another depth defender at best. Not that I think he's terrible, I just don't think he's smart enough to play consistently in the national team. Spinazzola & Conti need to get healthy and stay healthy to add some quality to the mix. CB's are in good shape with Rugani, Caldara, and Romagnoli. Hopefully Bonucci has enough left in the tank to let those guys mature a little, and take some pressure off. As for GK, my choice would be Perin, with Donnaruma #2 and Sirigu #3.
Overall, there is still a big gap between Italy and the top teams like France, Germany, Spain etc. But the team is in a good position, lots of young talent coming through all over the pitch. The goal for Euro 2020 should be a Semi-Final, which I think is do-able with Mancini.
The game against the Dutch will be a better test of where we are at IMO.
They did alright considering the fielded talent on each side and where the teams were both at in terms of their growth. Italy are 2-4 years away, but are still very unlikely to bring someone through like Dembele, never mind Mbappe, in that time period. The lack of genuine world class players can be overcome to an extent, but when it comes to tournaments it's a case of getting there first and then working on it.
Italy need to put more faith on youth, they are in a terrible situation in terms of talent compared to france/germany/spain. It's not like they don't produce the talent, it's that youth are not given the chance to succeed at top clubs. It seems like in order to play for a top italian team they need to go out on loan 10x just to prove themselves.
For example, why would a club like inter have nagatomo as their starting left back for 2-3 seasons when you have young prospects like Federico Dimarco (super talented u21 italian international). Why would AC Milan sell Cristante to benfica for 6m when he was playing so well as a 18 yr old at Acmilan? With that money they got Fernando Torres and Adil Rami
Now he's a 30m+ player and they probably can't afford to buy him back without selling. They are even thinking of selling Locatelli...
I would give examples in every single club even with juve.
The small serie A clubs need to stop playing these 40 yr old veterans in defence and attack and give chance to more italian youth. The only good examples are Sassuolo and Atlanta. Look how much italian talent atlanta pumped out in the last 2-3 years. Spinazzola Caldara Cristante Gagliardini Petagna Conti....
If every other small italian club did that than we would have an abundance of talent like germany/france/spain....
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Jorginho is actually from italian decent and grew up in italy. He's grandparents are italian. Allan is just brazillian.
For example, why would a club like inter have nagatomo as their starting left back for 2-3 seasons when you have young prospects like Federico Dimarco (super talented u21 italian international). Why would AC Milan sell Cristante to benfica for 6m when he was playing so well as a 18 yr old at Acmilan? With that money they got Fernando Torres and Adil Rami
Now he's a 30m+ player and they probably can't afford to buy him back without selling. They are even thinking of selling Locatelli...I would give examples in every single club even with juve.
The small serie A clubs need to stop playing these 40 yr old veterans in defence and attack and give chance to more italian youth. The only good examples are Sassuolo and Atlanta. Look how much italian talent atlanta pumped out in the last 2-3 years. Spinazzola Caldara Cristante Gagliardini Petagna Conti....
If every other small italian club did that than we would have an abundance of talent like germany/france/spain....
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Jorginho is actually from italian decent and grew up in italy. He's grandparents are italian. Allan is just brazillian.
Mbappe-Griezmann duo wow man. They are going to rack up massive GD in their Group
Good luck @Bianconero_Aus, @Maddy
Good luck @Bianconero_Aus, @Maddy
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Kjær with either Bjelland, Vestergaard, Christensen or Jørgensen. Our group of CB's are among the top at the World Cup. Our left and right backs tho
Kjær with either Bjelland, Vestergaard, Christensen or Jørgensen. Our group of CB's are among the top at the World Cup. Our left and right backs tho
Wonder if we have users out of all world cup participants here ?
Anyone from Peru/Colombia/Japan/Senegal etc ?
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Cant wait for the Balkan derby in your group 
Anyone from Peru/Colombia/Japan/Senegal etc ?
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Now that our flags are almost the same we should better unite our squads. Our fullbacks are decent with Licht, Widmer, Elvedi, Rodriguez.. but our CB's tho
