Italy lost 0-1 to North Macedonia in the World Preliminary Round play-offs and was out of the game. Four-star Italy missed the World Cup for the second consecutive time.
Sport Milano lamented: "Goodbye, World Cup. Goodbye, European champion. Goodbye, everything".
Similar cries can be seen everywhere among tens of millions of italians.
Nowadays, in Europe and even in the world, Italy's strategic position is not important, and football is one of the few sustenances. But the world's first league Serie A is now in dismal operation. Italy, which was a four-time world champion, has now repeatedly brushed the lower limit. After missing out on the 2018 World Cup, Italian football relied on the European Championship to win the title and played a doping shot. But after falling down again in the World Preliminary Round, the effect ended, and the evil disease of Italian football was once again exposed.
To clarify the problem of Italian football, 1-2 articles, three words and two words are definitely not enough, and can only describe one or two from one side. Let's start with the different circumstances of the two Inter players.
After missing the World Cup, most of Italy's players were badly criticized.
Barrera is the focal point of criticism.
The Whole Market, Slow Motion gave him a score of 4.5 or 5, with both Sport Milano and Skytai describing him as one of the "most disappointing" players.
Of all the Players in Italy, only two scored the highest and received some praise on The Night of Shame. One is Verratti. The other is Inter Nova Bastoni.
"Sport milano" angrily fired: "Mancini's beautiful football no longer exists, only Bastoni and Verratti are still doing well." Florenzi and Raspadoli have a little bit of a bright spot. Everyone else was terrible. The balls played by Mombile and Insigne couldn't be seen in the eye, (Gimbuka) Mancini was terrible, Barrera was bad, Jorginho was too far behind what he should be... Look at the state of these people, they don't deserve the World Cup! ”
From the different situations of Barrera and Bastoni, it can be seen that the eternal axiom of football: a self-contained, unchanging team is destined to decline after being thoroughly studied by the opponent, all the way backwards, and the hegemony is no longer there.
A year ago, Italy won the European Championship, and Mancini won worldwide praise.
At that time, the Italian team did not have a superstar like Mero, there was no top magic beast such as Kante and Pogba, and a single player in any position pulled out was not one of the top two in the world.
But that Italian team has a variety of tactics and the courage to change: Mancini led the team to abandon the traditional Italian defense, relying on a group of small players to control the ball, reverse feet, pass cut, flexible forward insertion, play "atypical Italian football", and then win the championship.
However, many of Italy's core players, such as Immobile, Bonucci, and Chiellini, have entered the twilight of their careers, and Giogenio, Insigne and others have also entered a period of decline.
If we want to truly maintain our strength in the medium and long term, Mancini should continue to be like before the European Championship, daring to change and play new tricks.
However, after winning the European Championship, Mancini suffered from the common disease of most Italian coaches, shouting that "the winning team does not adjust", after the opponent has studied himself thoroughly, he cannot come up with other plans, and the use of personnel is more and more conservative, and he does not dare to give new people more opportunities, so the combat effectiveness is getting worse.
Mancini won praise a year ago for "seeking newness and change", and now he does not dare to ask for change, which is the reason why he fell from heaven to hell.
In fact, the problems exposed by Italy today when they are suffocated by dense defense (such as no highs, etc.) are not the first time they have appeared.
In the group stage, Italy has been contained by Switzerland (twice), Bulgaria, Northern Ireland and other teams with dense defense, otherwise it will not fall into the cruel play-offs. The same problem appears many times, and if you do not try to cope with it, there will naturally be problems.
This is also the reason why Barrera has been criticized a lot.
It's not because Barrera isn't working hard enough. But because before the European Championship, the European opponents knew him only a little, and after the European Championship, the opponents conducted in-depth research on him, and set up many targeted measures for Italy's current playing style, making him unable to play.
Under this premise, if Mancini is determined, the tactics are adjusted, or even changed horses, it will not only help the team find new ways, but also help Barrera reduce pressure.
But Mancini did not dare to break the routine of the European championship at will, and Barrera also struggled in the mire, while sinking deeper and deeper.
That's why Bastoni has received a good review.
Not only because Bastoni has inserted and broken through with the ball several times, showing the rare sharpness of Italy's battle.
It's not just that his partner, Gianluca Mancini, is doing "peer help" with low-level mistakes.
More importantly, during the European Championship, Bastoni was only an iron bench, not a champion backbone. After winning the European Championship, Mancini still clung to the thighs of Chiellini and Bonucci, but unexpectedly, the two elders had a low attendance rate due to age and injury, and could not be a thigh. In desperation, Mancini was forced to use Bastoni, and it turned out that the newcomer was actually a relatively good player in the whole game, which further proved that Mancini's other practices, such as believing in Immobile and not daring to use Skamaka, were debatable.
Nowadays, there is a lot of criticism around Mancini, and this feeling is certainly not unfamiliar to Inter.
Isn't the same true for Inter coach Inzaghi Jr.? In the first half of the season, Xiaoyin boldly rotated, tactics were constantly fine-tuned, Inter had a good record, the league reached the top and won the Super Cup.
However, in the second half, the coach began to "the winning team does not adjust", stuck in his own ways, conservative in employment, clinging to the thighs of the veteran, and finally the record slipped, the Champions League was out, and the league also fell out of the top two, which was attacked by public opinion.
That's football. It is impossible to beat the world with a set of tactical packages. Standing still and refusing to seek change is not the right way.