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.

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.

-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.

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.

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.

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

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