Rocchi Injured, Out for the Rest of the Olympics

Italy have been dealt a blow. The only overage player brought to the tourney by Casiraghi, Tommaso Rocchi, has been ruled out for the remainder of the Olympics.

Remember that calf injury he got in training before the Olympics? The one he shrugged off in the game against Korea? Well tests have shown that it’s much more serious than what everyone first expected. There’s damage to the head of his fibula, and he’ll be out of action.

Quite frankly, this sucks. At first I wasn’t the biggest fan of him. He seemed like an Azzurri reject- someone who never made it big on the full national team, but was brought to the Olympics just because he was older. But he really started to grow on me. He was doing a great job of being a leader- hell, he even scored a goal. On that point, it’s never a good thing to see a player get injured (And what is it with us and having our leaders injured in major tourneys? Nesta in Germany, Canna in Euro, and now Rocchi?) I wish Rocchi all the best, and a fast recovery.

On the other hand, though, this means that we have no more overage players. So on the plus side, only the young guys are left, and they’ll gain a ton of experience from playing in this tourney. But now we’re down a striker, so what formation should we use? Personally, I’d just start Acqua in a front three of Acqua-Gio-Rossi, with Gio playing slightly behind the two of them.

We play Cameroon tomorrow. Expect another post a little later on, previewing the game.