Verratti, Jorginho, Barella, Locatelli … Italian midfielders impress with their talent and density. A line of play that allows Roberto Mancini to impose a style that seduces in the competition.
A goal as a symbol. In the 30th minute of their match against Belgium, Italy camps in front of the opposing surface. The Belgian defense relaunched in disaster. Marco Verratti appears and retrieves the ball 25 meters, slips it to his companion Nicolo Barella. The Interiste plays with the Red Devils who have come to surround him, releases a sharp shot and scores. Two midfielders manage to forget the setbacks in front of the goal of the striker Ciro Immobile, and confirm that they are the keystone of the Riviera armada.
Verratti and Barella are just two pieces of the impressive machine that make up the team’s midfielders. Alongside them, Chelsea player Jorginho. Also all three dressed in blue club, they seem to play together every morning in the playground, pushing aside the comrades to let them indulge in their only pleasure, handling a ball. These three complement each other as much as they are alike. Agile, intelligent, good at recovery, strong in passing, thinkers of the right pace… Verratti, Jorginho and Barella, even without being physical monsters – Jorginho is 1.80m, Barella 1.72m and Verratti 1.65m – bring the ‘seat that Roberto Mancini, the Italian coach, needs so that his team without stars or cyborg manages to move forward together. “The pure DNA of a team is its midfielder”, Fabien Bastide-Alzueta and Matteo Bini, authors of The Law of the Middle (Chistera).
If the metronome Jorginho, 29, and the fiery Verratti, 28, have been installed in the gratin of international football for quite a few seasons, Nicolo Barella, him, stammers the excellence. Inter’s followers have repeated over and over again the dimension that this player has taken, beyond his three goals and 14 assists this season in his club, crowned champion of Italy. His breakthroughs unbalance, his passing game surprises. “Barella, this is nothing new, but it will be the surprise of the tournament, had predicted Marcello Lippi, Italy’s coach at the coronation in 2006. I like how he plays, how he fights, how he runs. Our star is him. “
“We are Italians, we cannot become Spaniards at once”
This tactical line is the cog of a team which, with eleven goals scored for only two conceded, is one of the most regular of Euro 2021. But if the midfielder impresses observers so much, it is because his alchemy is achieves by way more than three ingredients. In addition to Stefano Sensi – forfeit – or Sandro Tonali, who remained at home, Bryan Cristante and Matteo Pessina, scorer against Austria on a pass from Verratti, allow the three holders to breathe as much as Mancini to give away. other football assumptions. But by inspiring the crowds and scoring twice in the second match, Manuel Locatelli is the one who most shaken a hierarchy, however quite clear in the head of the Italian coach. “With Verratti, the mechanism would go back to classical, with Locatelli, we dance rock”, the chronicler of the Republic Maurizio Crosetti, after the first two games, which saw the Sassuolo player shine.
The Corriere della Sera warned, however, in mid-June: “Mancini never thought of giving up the architect of his team for the Euro.” Once fit, in the third group match, Verratti was also immediately established, without much surprise. And on the pitch, he never seemed to have left his family. Despite his two missed matches, the Parisian has also created twelve «chances» goal, the second best of all the Euro in this register behind Kevin De Bruyne (13), that Italy eliminated.
Luis Enrique’s game against Spain is the last step before the final of a competition in which they have impressed. The midfield line has long been the cornerstone of La Roja’s playing system, imposing the music of the match on all opponents. “We will try to keep [le ballon] so as not to let them control the tempo ”, Barella prophesied ahead of the meeting. “We are Italians, we cannot become Spaniards all at once”, tempered Roberto Mancini. We could still witness another symbol, more diffuse than a goal. Because if the greatness of Spain is no longer, that of the Italian midfielder could be, and impose the Squadra Azzurra in the firmament of European football.
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