Recapping the Euro Qualifiers

Hi all, I’m also now writing for the Azzurri along with Chris, my name is Aaron Giambattista. I’m a huge Juve fan in addition to the Azzurri and love just about everything Italy, except our ability to reach new heights of underachievement. It’s amazing that in a month or so, it will have been a year since Italy won the World Cup. If you watched our team play now, you would have never believed it. Despite fielding the some of the most talented players in modern football history, Italy accepted a humiliating victory (yes, victory) over the Faroe Islands, a Denmark autonomous region that is 1250x smaller. Chris did a great job recapping this amazing display of mediocrity, so I’m going to recap the general last year or so as we have been sketchy on details.

-Italy wins World Cup, the country shuts down for 2-3 weeks, good luck trying to get food or say, an ambulance.
-Marcello Lippi, coach of Italy resigns, saying, “I believe that I have achieved what I set out to achieve as the coach of the Italian team.” Pretty hard to disagree with him there.
-Lippi is one of the best coaches in the world, led Juve to the Champion’s League final 4 times as well as other accomplishments with other clubs. His absense spells trouble.
-The FIGC hires Roberto Donadoni, a legendary midfielder with dubious experience. Call me crazy, but I’d expect them to have looked for a coach with I’m not sure…a championship? I don’t like the Milans much but Ancelotti or Mancini had way more qualifications and Ancelotti was interested in the job. Not sure what happened there.
-Fueled with post-WC confidence and a new youthful coach, Italy launches bravely into the Euro2008 qualifiers in September with an amazing 1-1 tie against…….Lithuania. Most Europeans couldn’t put their finger on this country. As of 2 years ago, Lithuania was ranked a daunting 118th in the world, their lowest ever. Oh, and they’ve never qualified for a World Cup or European Championship either.
-Stunned, Italy regroups to face none other than France 4 a World Cup rematch, and ends in a disappointing 3-1 loss. No Zidane in this game, either. Pirlo plays well as the anchor of the team, France’s Coupet does some fine goalkeeping, and Italy just plays poorly.
-Italy finally gets some points on the board in October with a 2-0 victory over Ukraine. Oddo scores on a penalty kick (I can’t remember why he was taking it) and Toni scores his 3rd goal in 6 months against Ukraine. Finally, a win.
-With the ball rolling, Italy takes on Georgia in an away game that showed some glimpses of the Azzurri’s greatness. Italy was on all-out attack all night, Georgia responds with a well-played offsides game, but Italy wins it 3-1. De Rossi rockets an impressive goal in from far out, Camoranesi heads in a Pirlo cross, and Perrotta taps in a cross. Although a victory, there were a few easy goals that we missed out on, Toni comes to mind.

At this point about a third through the qualifiers, Italy 2-1-1, and still not in qualifying position. A nice six month break or so ensues, during which the media goes crazy attacking Donadoni. (not completely unwarranted) He shares the blame, but overall I’d say post-WC high is hampering our skills. Lots of concern over not qualifying. Italy has only won one European Championship, in 1968, but has only missed out on one in the last 20 years.

-March comes along, and it’s Scotland we’re up against who was in 2nd place. Italy cruises to a fairly easy 2-0 victory, with Toni heading them both in. I say easy, despite not shooting one in, because Italy was dominating most of the pitch. No cards the entire game for either side, strange considering Mr. Gattuso was in the game. Great to add 3 points, but it’s not like we were up against France.
-Just a few days ago, we played against the Faroe Islands. Check out the last post for a very in-depth review of the game. It’s a bit embarrassing that the end result was only 2-1, but we got the 3 points that count. As of now, we are 2nd in Group B, 2 points behind France and just 1 ahead of Ukraine/Scotland. France is dominating in terms of Goal Difference, with a solid 12, Italy and Scotland have 5, Ukraine, 2. As far as anyones concerned, that’s the end of Group B.

Tomorrow is another busy day of qualifiers, Italy is playing against Lithuania. As the title of the last post indicates, we damn well better have a more victorious result than our first encounter. If we tie, expect criticism of Donadoni to peak again. If we lose, the media will be calling for his resignation as opposed to just tearing him a new one. I don’t think he will resign if we do lose, and I don’t think he should. He’s new at this and some of the fault should be squarely placed on the players. Is he Lippi? Absolutely not, but I think he has the potential to do well in Euro2008. We’ll see tomorrow if Italy is really on the upswing.

Possible lineup- Gianluigi Buffon; Massimo Oddo, Fabio Cannavaro, Marco Materazzi, Gianluca Zambrotta; Aimo Diana, Daniele De Rossi, Andrea Pirlo, Simone Perrotta; Alessandro Del Piero, Filippo Inzaghi

Predicted result- 2-0.