How Do You Rate Prandelli?

June 19th, 2011 | by: elaine | Comments Off

Just shy of a year ago, Prandelli was handed the reins of the Azzurri following their most disappointing showing ever at a World Cup. Granted, the only place to go from there was up, but at least he hasn’t inspired a Lippi recall like Donadoni did.

But how do you think Prandelli is doing? You are being asked to rate him in several areas today based on the team’s performances and your observations.

Performances

Friendlies:

For some reason, Prandelli has not fared well in the friendlies. His record is 1-2-2. His first match was vs. Côte d’Ivoire and was a disappointing 0-1 loss.  In November, a 1-1 draw vs. Romania wasn’t that much more encouraging. The next friendly was Germany vs. Italy in February, which ended in a  less disappointing 1-1 draw against the European powerhouses. A 2-0 defeat of the Ukraine was his first Friendly win. But as you’ll recall, their most recent match was vs. Republic of Ireland and was a stunning 0-2 loss, even if former Italy mastermind Giovanni Trappatoni was at the helm for Ireland.

EURO 2012 Qualifiers:

Talk about winning when it counts, Prandelli’s Italy is undefeated in Euro qualification. With 5-1-0 record, Italy are at the top of their group and almost guaranteed Euro qualification. With 2-1 and then 3-0 wins over Estonia, a 5-0 win over the Faroe Islands, the 3-0 win awarded vs. Serbia after hooliganism forced the match to be called off, a 1-0 win against Slovenia, and that single 0-0 draw vs. Northern Ireland, Prandelli has managed to restore hope in the Italy camp after last year’s embarrassing World Cup debacle.

It is noteworthy that sandwiched between the 1st and last Friendly losses was an undefeated run of 6-3-0, 9 games undefeated, which was last accomplished  by Italy in 2002 by none other than Giovanni Trappatoni’s Italy squad.

Selections

Upon being unveiled July 1st last year, Prandelli made a number of promises about whom he would call up. First was meritocracy. With so many questions about Lippi calling up too many past heroes and leaving home such promising new talent as Giuseppe Rossi, Prandelli offered a refreshing promise to evaluate players based on current form not past accomplishments. He is quoted as saying, “All the players who will be called up must understand that they don’t represent themselves, but a nation. The logic has to be that of the group and the attachment to the shirt.” But has he stayed true to this?

He also made it clear that he would call up anyone, including foreign born players with an Italian passport. He called up Amauri right away, then did a little better in this category by more recently calling up Thiago Motta, who scored the winning goal in his first match. And while he initially declined to name names, it soon became apparent that he was very much in favor of also calling up previously controversial players such as Cassano and Balotelli.

His vision for rebuilding the Azzurri squad was to include plenty of youth, and it was clear right away that his transition from the aged 2010 World Cup squad to his new and improved younger squad would be much swifter than the one Lippi had been working on, without the emotional gratuities afforded by his predecessor. So has he done enough? Or maybe has he done too much, leaving us with a squad that is too inexperienced to win a big tournament next year?

Style of Play

The team he inherited from Lippi was neither cohesive nor productive. Even their defensive style of play was not successful defensively, hence tumbling out of the World Cup in the Group Stage. This was perhaps to be Prandelli’s most difficult task, finding the cohesiveness and rhythm required to actually win again. He promised a more attacking style of play, which could have been as simple as a squad who could consistently score one single goal, in all honesty.

His infusion of youth and newer players helped. He did not forget to shore up the defense, but has since called up full backs who can both defend and attack. His midfield is perhaps his weakest area still, but have gone from chaos to the increasing ability to maintain possession and move the ball forward. And speaking of forward, he has called up some of the most exciting forwards that Italy has to offer, and not only do they like to shoot, they know how to find the back of the net, too.

While many would prefer a 4-3-2-1, Prandelli’s 4-3-1-2 has been very successful against the “minnow” teams at least, and seems to be a system in which most of these players feel comfortable playing in. Again, he still needs to sort out the midfield, and maybe he will have to tweak the formation to get it right. He also needs to find depth at each position, with a glaring deficiency at left back and the aforementioned midfield conundrum. Is the improvement in style of play enough over one year’s time?

Your Ratings

So we ask you to rate Prandelli by copying & pasting the categories below into your reply and then using a scale of 0-10.  A 0 would be complete failure, a severe drop in level from Lippi’s WC 2010 squad. A 5 would be no change from Lippi’s squad. A 10 would be an excellent, very successful, a tremendous improvement from last year’s squad. Please consider all categories and any other criteria you like when listing your overall rating. And feel free to tell us why you chose your ratings, too, as well as the usual comments.

Performances:

Selections:

Style of Play:

Overall Rating:

Elaine is now on Twitter • follow her occasional tweets @ItaliaWCB