Re: Italian National Team Thread

[adun101]

For those people saying Bonucci would be better..... you haven't watched Bonucci this year.

Well, as far as I can remember, he played only one game in a 4 man line, against Real and he was ok. He's usually bad in that position, while being great as the 3rd CB, just like he was for most of the year. I don't know what are you talking about.

[adun101]

You guys keep saying Darmian was great... whatever, but he and Chiellini were snapchatting at England's goal

That's what happens when a team counter attack you. Both Chiellini and Darmian spent most of the game in the opponents 3rd. Darmian was overlapping Candreva all night long. Of course if the ball is given away they can't run at 30 MPH to recover. It's not their fault. Paletta lost his man (the only *bleep* man) in the box for the goal.

Darmian more than Chiellini.

As for recovery, I would prefer that they would run back, instead of jogging, at least when you have Verratti covering for you.

It wasn't Palletta's man in that situation, it is the job of the weak side full back to cover runs at the far post

Anyway, b/c of the messed up conditions, I'm going to give everyone a pass, minus Palletta and Candreva for his frustrating passing and decision making. He was the one that started that counter with his stupid attempt of a through ball and it wasn't the only one

[dostoevsky]

I noticed an intentional and very deliberate insistence on passing the ball out from the defence. Even if the guys were pressured, they would knock it back to Sirigu who would look to make another pass. I liked seeing that attitude from Italy.

As xifio mentioned, it really has become a trademark of Prandelli, however our build up has at times become counter-intuitive and wasteful as whilst we maintain the principle of playing ourselves out of trouble from the back whilst under pressure, we then have a tendency to become wastefully direct having escaped this pressure. Against Germany in our last friendly we repeatedly got ourselves in trouble trying to play out from the back, then once we had escaped this pressure, Germany would move up onto Pirlo and Bonucci in an attempt to force the forward pass to come from either Barzagli or Chiellini, most often Barzagli, who would attempt the hollywood ball over the top which didn't work once. As you said, it's not a game that suits our forward line and our play when not under pressure can at times be less sophisticated that when we're actually under intense pressure. Our attacking structure has been an issue for a long time though and I'm not expecting any real stability to emerge during the World Cup.

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