Rossi to Start Against Greece; Breaking down the Midfield

it is kind of boring.
they didn’t give it to G. Rossi enough when he was in.

Posted from  United States

I can’t believe I take time off work to sit through this crap! This is horrible!

One good thing did come out of this game: Italy doesn’t seem to be the only country with empty stadiums! well, actually it may be because Italy is playing that this stadium is empty!

You folks should have hired Cappello when you had the chance. Italy shot itself in the foot by rehiring this cigar-nibbling old hack.

I completely agree with you Kat

Wow……..jesus christ, it’s November 2009, and it’s a friendly. Relax guys, you’re the same ones that would have called for Ancelotti’s head at the beginning of this season.

Posted from  United States

The thing is, things have to move faster in NT since you don’t get as much time as you would working with a club. We’ve already come 1/4 way to the big day. The team should have presented us some kind of idea or vision of “gioco” by now and I have yet to see that from Lippi-bis’ boys.

4-3-3 is pure crap………………………….

Posted from  United States

Wow……good call, Julian.

Posted from  United States

I agree kqql, hate it when we play 4-3-3

I reckon Lippi is playing it safe so that he could set the record for most undefeated games in a row. Once that is done, hopefully he will take a couple of risks. The biggest risk he could make would be the biggest improvement – Bring us ANTONIO CASSANO! How can Lippi justify leaving at home the best player in the world – before anyone flies off the wall, let me just point out – Cassano completely owns Sampdoria, the entire team revolves around him. No other ‘talented’ player in the world can lay any claim to what Cassano has done for that team – single handedly.

If there are two people Ruining the future of italian football right now it would be Claudio Ranieri and Marcello Lippi. The juve man leaves the Atomic Ant on the bench in favour of playing the ageless Del Piero and the Aging Pavel Nedved – How can Nedved (36) still be permitted to play an entire 90 minutes?
Lippi on the other hand should have really experimented with the lineup today. Aquafresca was one of the call ups he neglected to make.

There were two moments today that gave away Lippi’s complete lack of judgement.
1. Starting Luca Toni – in an exhibition game, leave this guy at home (leave him at home regardless) but especially for this game – yet lippi starts him
2. When he took off Toni, he put Gilardino in – who had 0 impression on this game – immediatly there after he took off the only man to make a good impression today G. Rossi in place of Iaquinta – what a genious move. If Lippi really wanted to test the waters properly, I would have gone with Pepe – Iaquinta – Rossi; I guarentee Iaquinta would have scored had he played with Rossi for at least 10 minutes.

Furthermore, I am beginning to see a resolution with this 4-3-3. If lippi intends on playing this formation then here is how he should do it.

Giovinco – Iaquinta – Rossi (I reckon this will introduce enough talent, enough speed and enough action to get the job done. In fact I am a little excited just looking at this! Iaquinta is probably the most under estimated player in all of italian football. This guy is uber when he plays. Physically he is in peak shape, not like that fat Luca Toni, he has speed, unlike Luca Toni flopping around, he has size, and he has skill again unlike floppy, Fat luca toni. and he is 29 years old for the world cup he will be 30 not so old! Luca toni will be 33 for the world cup.

So here is the ideal 4-3-3 azzurri

Giovinco – Iaquinta(aquafresca) – Rossi
Pirlo – de rossi – montolivo (maggio)
Grosso – chiellini – cannavaro – Dossena

Buffon (abbiate and amelia)

This version would have enough speed and skill to get the job done. But heck, 2010 will probably look like this:

Di Natale – Luca Toni – Ravanelli
Di Livio – Gattuso – De Rossi
Zambrotta – Matrix – Cannavaro – Maldini
De Sanctis

with Quags, Del Piero, Inzaghi, Bonera, pepe, luccarelli on the bench.

Man, I can’t wait!

Iaquinta is not good enough to be the focal point of the Azzurri’s attack. And I say that as a Juventino and as a huge fan of his.

How can Nedved (36) still be permitted to play an entire 90 minutes?

Have you watched him? It’s because he’s still hauling up and down the pitch, scoring goals, putting in beautiful crosses and assists, and winning us games. Giovinco will get his time, Del Piero played 11 games his first season with Juventus. Giovinco has played 4-5 already. I’m not expecting him to lock down a starting position by the end of the season and neither should he.

For the record, if Ranieri is “ruining” the future of Italian football, explain to me how Molinaro and Chiellini have been constant fixtures during his coaching? Or how De Ceglie has been playing a good amount and Marchisio had all but staked his claim to a starting shirt in midfield until he got injured. Other teams in gli big aren’t doing 1/2 of that.

Posted from  United States

By the way I really hate that Fifa rules on shirt numbers. It’d be like seeing Maldini in a Juve shirt, it’s just not natural

Posted from  United States

Full match report here, for anyone interested.
http://www.mcalcio.com/greece-1-1-italy-toni-wakes-up-lippi-makes-it-31-international-friendly/

By the way, big fu**ing KUDOS to Marcello Lippi far raking in 31 matches without a loss. LEGEND.

Stop with Toni already.

And is it me, or is Montolivo not up to this level

Nedved too old? he is still diving like a 20 yr. old.

Toni was great, but he has sucked ever since the end of last season.

Gilardino just doesn’t have it and is not fitting in with the current 4-3-3 formaion (which i agree is not working at all).

Maggio was horrible. the guy should never be dressed in blue again.

DeRossi had a bad game but even so had a couple of nice set pieces and a great assist.

and i agree that Montolivo isn’t up to the level (at least yet)

this was horrible to see and i really think Lippi lost his mind over the year he spent on sabbatical. no way to tell what he is thinking.

i have to agree with a lot of what Marco says, but i can’t say i am convinced about Cassano. he would be better for sure than Toni or Gilardino, but Samp really hasn’t been doing that well and Cassano hasn’t really been hitting the back of the net as much as others.

all i can say is that Lippi was great, but i agree with Marco … Donadoni was actually doing better before his exit.

Giovinco, Quagliarella, DiNatale, Iaquinta all need to be brought in, thouhg it does none of us any good to say it.

Monto was the worst Italian player.. BY FAR! Didn’t get involved at all..

Posted from  Denmark

Judging by what other sources tell me, Italy’s second half was actually very good. Solid, fluid game out there, despite the horrid first half.

I don’t agree with Marco’s considerations at all. Firstly, to me a tridente deploying Giovinco-Iaquinta-Rossi sounds like a recipe for disaster. I don’t have anything against any of these players by themselves, but they need to be arranged in the right combination to be at their most effective, and this just isn’t it. There’s zero physicality in this tridente; the only one with some weight there is Iaquinta, but since he doesn’t have the technique to take and direct the ball by himself, why bother marking him? Any defense will just have to clamp down Giovinco and Rossi. This isn’t exactly a hard thing to do – Giovinco may have all the technique in the world, but he weighs 20 kgs and any defender with half a measure of sense will just foul him to bring him down. Rossi is a little better, but again, that’s not really his role. Someone like Del Piero or Totti could take, hold and re-deliver the ball and free the youngsters to do their tricks. But Iaquinta would just become a useless man on the pitch. (I say this with the qualifier that I respect the man enormously; it’s just that, as alessio pointed out, his role is to support the weight of our attack and not take it all on his own shoulders).

As importantly, a tridente like that reeks of inexperience like none I’ve ever known of in the Azzurri ranks. Psychologically speaking, it’s wishful thinking at best and a desperate delusion at worst to expect them to stay stable. Why not bring Balotelli instead of Giovinco, if this is the direction we’re going to go in? At least he adds the physicality.

I agree that Cassano should be called up. But saying he is keeping Sampdoria up on his own means doing a huge injustice to that team. What of the things that Palombo, Accardi and Campagnaro have been doing between midfield and defense? If Cassano is holding up the team on his own, why did they slide to quasi-relegation positions the moment the above elements ended up injured? You could argue Cassano is single-handedly keeping up the Sampdoria *offense,* which is a very different statement to make. But if that is true, why were they finding it close to impossible to actually FINALISE a goal until Bellucci came back?

I love Cassano and I think he deserves a starting spot in the Azzurri. But saying that Sampdoria = Cassano makes no more sense than saying that Inter = Ibrahimovic or Barcelona = Messi.

Ultimately if Italy is going to go for a tridente, they’ll need a combination bringing together three players of this kind: 1.) a technical player capable of directing and creating, while linking midfield and attack (Cassano, Del Piero, Di Natale). 2.) A prima punta capable of finalising, bringing in the headers and highly physical (Gilardino, Toni, Acquafresca, Borriello, Inzaghi). 3.) A runner, adding speed and dynamism to our game, with a balanced mix of physicality, technique and finishing, and ready to come back in support of our defense (Iaquinta, G.Rossi, Giovinco, Pepe, Quagliarella, and again Di Natale).

In peninsular football, this trio translates to Fantasista, Prima punta, Seconda punta. It is a classic in Italian football and has a whole history behind it proving its effectiveness; see Juve’s Baggio-Ravanelli-DelPiero, Roma’s Totti-Montella-Cassano, Milan’s Kaka-Crespo-Shevchenko.

Marco’s combination sees three players together all of the third category. Sure, Giovinco might double up to the first, but only if he were supported by more physical characters in the other two categories, and that he is not. It is a fascinating idea for fantasy football, but I don’t think it could ever work in reality.

Posted from  Germany

…and that’s me having just thrown away my time for a colossal post on the internet. Yay me.

Posted from  Germany

Some thoughts:

-Relax. It was a friendly.
-I have nothing against Lippi, I actually think he’s a great coach. Y’all are just haters.
-Though it did seem like we were playing a 4-3-3, the commentators in the beginning said 4-4-2 so I don’t know.
-Rossi is the real deal. I think he should be a fixture from here on out. If (hopefully) Cassano is called up in the forthcoming games, I can’t wait to see that partnership.
-De Rossi is a beast. All biases aside. I can’t remember a chance on offense that wasn’t set up by him. That being said, I thought he could do better on D, he looked a little dazed. Probably the wrist is still bothering him a little bit.
-Like Julian said, despite Gattuso’s good form in the last WC Qualifiers, it seems as if he is dipping in form again. He just didn’t seem like the same player out there.
-I actually didn’t hate Toni for once in this game. But he was still not that great.
-I think we needed a guy like the Perrotta-of-old out there, but there was no one in that mold on the field yesterday.
-I just completely lost my train of thought because of organic chemistry homework, so … yeah. Those were just a couple of randomass thoughts.

Posted from  United States

Ah, the wonders of free radical synthesis…

I think people are forgetting that Italy are crap to watch in unofficial games and even in some official ones. The World Cup has brought in a ton of Azzurri fans that honestly HAVE NO CLUE what they’re getting themselves into.

firstly, and unfortunately, Italy has looked like crap in the last three or four games they have played.

i agree with much of what you say in terms of abilities and fielding, John S. except that Gilardino and Toni are “good” options as prima punta, particularly as they are not capable of consistently finishing. it makes no difference whether Gilardino is at the top of the serie A charts. the Azzurri 4-4-3 does not suit him (as well as not suiting many others), confidence in one arena does not necessarily translate directly to another, and international football is different.

i agree that Del Piero and totti would be ideal playmakers, but they are getting older, Totti isn’t playing in blue; DelP might make it to 2010, but he probably cannot last last a full 90 and if her gets injured, who is left? Cassano might be the answer there.

Balotelli is simply awesome, but after a lot of thought, i actually agree with Lippi. if he gets thrown out there too early and doesn’t perform on level or is not played often, he will wind up loosing the confidence he has that fuels him … much like what i believe is happening to Menez right now at Roma.

also, the thing about Giovinco is that he can act in the midfield, not necessarily the front line, as a quick ball mover and bridge the front line. this could work well if we used a different formation other than the 4-3-3. i wouldn’t necessarily start him, but he would be more valuable to have in the 23 than Toni, Gilardino, Maggio and some others.