good article from the Scotland on Sunday
HOW THE mighty are falling in Switzerland. Yesterday morning, Italy and France, twin conquerors of the world two years ago, awoke to a nightmare, their angst captured perfectly by their national press. In France, L'Equipe was almost pitiful in its pleas to a higher power to save Les Bleus, their front page screaming that the only hope for them now was to get down on their knees and pray. In Italy, the same plaintive cries from La Gazzetta dello Sport. "Saint Buffon is not enough," th
Indeed they are. And it's thrilling to watch. The pressure that exists now in the build-up to Tuesday's meeting in Zurich, a tie that may prove to be the salvation of one or the death of both depending on what the Romanians do against Holland, is un-quantifiable.
We only get glimpses of the stress involved, like on Thursday when the attack dogs in the Italian media continued their barking at Roberto Donadoni.
Donadoni had the shortest of honeymoons in the job. When his team lost 3-1 to France in an early qualifying match for this tournament the editorial in La Nazione began thus: "How to destroy Lippi's masterpiece in three weeks." Relations have not warmed up much since. The influential press see him as the Italian Football Federation's yes man, a Steve McClaren type.
Even when his team reeled off nine wins in ten games to qualify comfortably they were on his case. Why no Francesco Totti? Why not try and lure their darling out of retirement?
At one point Donadoni was so fed up with the badgering that he denied ever having heard Totti's name before. There's been an element of farce about this for a while.
It started again in the wake of the Dutch defeat. Here was a question from the floor. "Apart from your tactical ignorance and your ridiculous team selection, why, Roberto, do you insist on speaking in an emotionless monotone?" To which, Donadoni replied, rather theatrically, "Mamma Mia!"
And so to Thursday when reporters rounded, only semi-jokingly, on Donadoni for not having infiltrated the Romanian training camp. "What? Spies dressed up as trees?" he said, witheringly.
"What about the debate about your team selection?"
"Debate by whom? Journalists among journalists?" Donadoni replied with barely concealed contempt.
There has been debate, though. And it's not just the scribblers who've been at it. An increasingly fractious public have been at it and it's been going on inside his own dressing room too, it seems. After the historic opening game loss to the Dutch (Tuttosport's headline the next day was 'Give Us Back, Lippi! – Donadoni sinking Italy") Andrea Pirlo criticised his manager for not picking Daniele De Rossi in the starting line-up and for not making substitutions earlier.
Worse again, La Gazzetta reported that some Italian players in the squad sent text messages to club mates at home complaining bitterly about Donadoni's management.
The newspaper claimed that one team member wrote: "We only know who plays a few hours before the game. We are treated like children. Physically we are fine, but we enter onto the field with fear.'
Italy's great success of the past has been built on a number of things, brilliant defending and good fortune at the right time being two of them. Donadoni doesn't have either at the moment.
Injury has robbed him of the generation's finest defender in Fabio Cannavaro and nobody can replace him adequately. In two games last week they gave up twice as many goals as they did in the entire 2006 World Cup. They are utterly lost without Cannavaro.
And luck? Resoundingly against them. They have created buckets of chances but the eye of their strikers is not yet in.
"Luca Toni is a horrible guy to play against," says David Weir, who should know, given that Toni scored three times against Scotland in the Euro campaign. "He's got all the ability of a small striker and the bulk to go with it. At times, he's unplayable. You just can't get near him when he's on form."
This has not been his week, though. Donadoni has tried everything now. Against the Romanians he changed his mindset and went with two strikers and one in the hole. "The last frontier" as La Gazzetta called it. It didn't work. He made five changes, including the beloved Alessandro Del Piero and Pirlo's pal, De Rossi, but still they couldn't get their win. Donadoni now resembles a man who's just realised he's left the gas on at home.
In that, he has company with Raymond Domenech, another man haunted by the brilliant Orange, another who has tried and failed with Plan B. He, too, came out with all guns blazing on the attack front following their insipid opener against the Romanians. A 4-4-2 against Romania became a 4-2-3-1 against Holland and it brought them an outstanding display by the wonderful Franck Ribery and many chances, enough to win any game if their luck was in. Clearly, it is not.
And at the other end, a mirror image of the Italians. France had not conceded a solitary goal in five games before they met the Dutch on Friday night. Defensive stability was a given. But they have imploded there, Lilian Thuram made to look an old man by the rampant men of Holland.
The French and the Italians are comparable, too, in their inability to make the most of their chances.
"You look at somebody like Karem Benzema on the bench," says Weir. "He absolutely ripped us apart at Ibrox in the game with Lyon. He was one of the smartest, strongest, most lethal strikers I've ever played against and he was dropped for the Holland match.
"But, then, they have class strikers everywhere. They just don't have the goals, for some reason that's impossible to understand."
As a head-to-head there is rarely much between France and Italy though the record favours the French, even allowing for their defeat in the World Cup final.
In 90 or 120 minute games, the Italians have not beaten the French in 30 years. That's a span of seven games; three France victories and four draws.
The footballing superpowers are going to have to find the goals and the stability at the back on Tuesday. But above all they're going to need all the luck they can get when Holland take on Romania in Berne.
As L'Equipe so eloquently puts it, it's a time for prayers.
By Tom English
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