Leverkusen: In a sense, the 2024 European Championship starts there on Monday. Host Germany has nothing to do in the arena. The four-time world champion Italy is playing for everything or (almost) nothing. As a guest of Ukraine, the direct duel is about the right to start in the final round. A real showdown after an otherwise bland tournament qualification in ten groups.
The great football country Italy – it missed the last two World Cups, but in between it became European champion. How does that fit together? Difficult. From October 2018 to October 2021, the “Azzurri” did not lose a single one of 37 games. Before that they lost in the play-off to Sweden, then in the play-off to Macedonia. You need a point against Ukraine, otherwise it would be play-off again. The fatalistic tendency is that you could almost give it away; it would go wrong anyway.
“We’ve seen enough disaster films lately,” the football primer “Gazzetta dello Sport” is now urgently asking for a program change: “’Apocalypse now’ in Russia (World Cup 2018, the editorial team)‘The Day After’ in Qatar (WM 2022). With all due respect to Di Caprio, let’s skip ‘Titanic’ and switch to a comedy, one of those with a heart at the end.”
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So Leverkusen, Monday evening, 8:45 p.m. The loser still has a remaining chance in one of three play-off tournaments in March. But only one ticket is awarded between four teams. With the same mode, Italy was eliminated in the semi-finals of the last World Cup, and such paralysis triggered the mere idea of another failure. The only thing that would be more embarrassing would be to miss out on a European Championship as defending champions, for which 24 teams qualify; almost half the continent.
Scandal involving national players
National coach Luciano Spalletti doesn’t even deny the obvious. “Fear? We have them at our side, we are moving forward together,” he said at the beginning of the week, and at least in a 5-2 win against Macedonia on Friday evening it worked quite well. When, after a comfortable 3-0 lead, two goals from the guests woke up the demons and it became eerily quiet in the Roman Olympic Stadium, Spalletti’s team soon banished the fear with two goals.
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The 64-year-old, who replaced European Championship champion Roberto Mancini, who emigrated to Saudi Arabia, at the start of the season, is an unconventional guy with sometimes mysterious expressions but crystal-clear footballing ideas. After a brilliant championship with SSC Napoli, he is considered qualified for the national psychological test. On Vesuvius last spring he allayed the fear of failure for the southern Italians, who had been without a title since Maradona in 1990. Now he has to drive away the next trauma. What is needed is “an Italy at the height of its own history,” he announced in a stately manner before the Macedonia game, after which he stated “a step forward.”
“At the height of your own history”: Coach Luciano Spalletti (left) with Gianluigi Buffon
Quelle: Getty Images
The victory was important in many ways because, as befits a real calcio crime thriller, the progression of the plot is also garnished by a scandal. Before the last international matches in October, the police appeared at the team headquarters and informed the national players Sandro Tonali and Nicolò Zaniolo of their suspect status in the course of ongoing investigations into an illegal betting ring. Another long-time national player, Alessandro Florenzi, was questioned on Thursday.
The professionals were apparently in the forbidden zone because they were addicted to gambling. Under criminal law, they only face a fine, but under association law, football players are prohibited from betting on their own sport. Tonali did exactly that; even at matches between his clubs Brescia and AC Milan. What saved him from being prosecuted on suspicion of manipulation was that he always relied on victory. However, Italy’s most expensive football player in history (70 million euros transfer fee when moving to Newcastle United) could not avoid a match ban for club and country football.
Just like Paolo Rossi in 1982…
The midfielder had to sit out for ten months, plus eight months of probation in return for therapeutic commitments. Nicolò Fagioli (Juventus) had previously been sentenced to seven months (plus five) – he had also bet on football matches, but not on those of his club. The investigators were only able to exonerate Zaniolo; he apparently only played poker and black jack on the platform. The Aston Villa attacker was nominated again by Spalletti.
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According to the logic of Italian football dramas, Zaniolo should now score the decisive goal against Ukraine. Just like Paolo Rossi managed to win the 1982 World Cup in 1982 after a two-year ban because of his involvement in the “Totonero” affair (Schwarztoto). Just like goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon (now head of the selection delegation) and defense chief Fabio Cannavaro led the “Azzurri” to the title in 2006, while their club Juventus was forcibly relegated to the second division in the wake of the “Calciopoli” manipulation scandal. In each case, the Italians triumphed with a fortress mentality against all injustice. But they also each had a reservoir of exceptional football players.
And now? It’s going ok. In the debate as to whether the 2021 European Championships and the undefeated series were the outliers to the top, or the duels with Sweden and Macedonia were the ones to the bottom, the truth, as always, lies somewhere in the middle. But the trend does not suggest that there will soon be as much to celebrate as there was two years ago.
Italy lost both matches in this European Championship qualification against the then finalists England. Most recently, in a 1:3 (1:1) draw at Wembley, they showed a joyful performance that Spalletti saw as a signpost for the future. However, when the English got serious in the second half, a defense without Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonucci was quickly undermined.
The European Championship success was one of situational heroes
The aging senators were something like the heart and soul of the EM fairytale. Italy played cheerfully forward, but could always rely on the defensive skills and charisma of the veterans. The result was a script full of successful coincidences: inspiring home games in the group phase of the multinational European Championship strengthened the sense of mission, and in the semi-finals and final, the tall goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma made decisive saves in the penalty shoot-out.
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As skeptics pointed out back then, the undefeated streak consisted of wins against the little ones and draws against the big ones. That doesn’t take away the merits of the European champions, on the contrary – it marks them as professionals who mobilized their optimum. But also more as situational heroes; especially since many key players were already in the autumn of their careers. Midfielder Marco Verratti, Italy’s greatest talent of his generation, is now playing in Qatar and has not been called up in the Spalletti era, just like Bonucci, now from Union Berlin. Chiellini, now in Los Angeles, resigned last year of his own accord.
The Italo-Brazilian Jorginho will be in the game for the first time under the new coach. In 2021 he was named Europe’s Footballer of the Year after winning not only the European Championship but also the Champions League with Chelsea. In the World Cup qualification, however, the strategist became a scapegoat when he missed from the penalty spot in both top games against Switzerland – and that is how the whole Macedonia mess got started. On Friday he failed again with a penalty.
Ukraine is to be assessed as strong
“I want to feel the emotions of the European Championships again,” says Jorginho. Nobody in the squad has played in another final anyway. Even from the final eleven in London, only Donnarumma (Paris St. Germain), the attacking right-back Giovanni Di Lorenzo (Naples), the variable midfielder Nicolò Barella (Inter Milan) and the winger Federico Chiesa (Juventus) are permanent fixtures in the team. Italy’s only exceptional striker was the best man with two goals in the 5-2 win, with two other attackers scoring in Giacomo Raspadori and Stephan El Shaarawy. A shooting match against the nervous memories: Italy remained goalless in the three trauma play-off games against Sweden (0:1, 0:0) and Macedonia (0:1).
No rest on the ball: Jorginho once again missed a penalty against North Macedonia
Quelle: Getty Images/Claudio Villa
At least a draw is enough in Leverkusen, but Ukraine can be rated as strong. Under the notoriously difficult circumstances, a team with fresh self-confidence has formed. Shakhtar Donetsk around the young playmaker Georgiy Sudakov recently managed a 1-0 win against Barcelona in the Champions League, the attackers Viktor Tsygankov and Artem Dovbyk come from Girona as the surprise Spanish league leaders. From an Italian perspective, the only reassuring thing is the yellow jerseys – the color of Brazil in Italy’s famous 3-2 win in 1982. Even such distant parallels have been used in the press to combat the bad premonition.
Only association president Gabriele Garbina has officially said without a doubt: “We will go our way to the Euros, and then you will see how many people jump on our wagon.” In fact, qualification could reshuffle the cards. For the first time in preparation for the European Championship, Spalletti would have time to work longer with the players, and he showed what he is capable of in Naples. Even supposedly average professionals suddenly conjured up fantastic football on the pitch.
Heaven or hell: Italy doesn’t do it in between.
