I remember I once saw a statistic that showed how much lower the ball is in possession in Italian football is compared to the other big 5 leagues, and that is mostly due to moaning and time wasting on the pitch, players having to kick the ball out just because one guy is having a moment.. the problem is that Italian footballers think they are smart, that they are conserving energy on the long run, which was the case 10 years ago, it was a smart move, but other leagues have more energy storage, when you conserve all the time your storage becomes smaller, thats why when european matches go into extra time you will not see the italian team capable of hanging on, that is, if they are even able to take it that far to begin with, eventually they will crumble and they will give in. That is why Italians need to, like you said, raise their intensity levels, before start acting smart and resort to cheeky measures to piss off opponents and win the game with the least effort. Fucking modernize for god sake!