It stands to reason that defending champions Italy have a decent knockout draw as they finish second in their group against Switzerland and are in the bottom half of the bracket where they are not so competitive overall. Although the outside world is indeed not optimistic that they can successfully win the championship in this competition, entering the top 8 should be a bottom line. But what is surprising is that in the 1/8 finals against the Swiss team, the team lost 0-2 to the opponent and hastily ended the journey of this European Cup. From being underdog before the game to advancing in the middle of the game and now stopping in the round of 16, the Italians' performance was really mediocre, and according to the country's media reports after the game, the Azzurri were booed by their own fans when they went to the stands to apologize.
Because of Carafiori's suspension and Dimarco's injury, coach Spalletti had to make passive adjustments to the personnel, but what people didn't expect was that he directly changed the formation from 3 back to 4 backs, and the veteran Darmian appeared in the left-back position that he was not good at, and in addition, in the midfield, only Barella continued to play, and Faggioli and Cristante started together. In contrast, the bald manager's changes up front were even more unexpected, with veteran El Shaarawy, who had not played a minute in the previous three group games, getting a start, but his 45-minute substitution showed that the change was a complete failure.
And the final result proved that Spalletti's personnel and formation arrangement for the whole game also did not achieve the desired effect at all. The Italian played awkwardly and gave his opponent plenty of chances, and the result of the defeat was expected. The defeat to Switzerland saw the Italians eliminated before the quarter-finals for the first time since 2004, and they became the third defending champions to be eliminated in a row in the round of 16. Defending champions Spain in 2016 were knocked out by Italy, while Portugal, the defending champions of the last European Championship, were driven home by Belgium, and this time it was Italy who were unlucky.
According to Italy's "Milan Sport", when the Italian team went to the stands to apologize after the game, they were booed by the team's fans. According to the report, after the game, the team's captain Donnarumma took everyone to the Italian fan stands to greet and apologize for the team's performance, but was met with fierce boos from the team's fans, who shouted for the players to go back to the locker room, which lasted for a few minutes. In fact, as early as when the team conceded the second goal, many "Blue Coats" fans who came to the scene no longer cheered for the team, because they knew that the result of the game should not change much. They spent a lot of money to watch the game, but that's all the team did. Everyone thought that the team had no "soul" at all and that this was not the Italy they wanted, so they rejected the national team's apology.
The result of the loss not only made the players very frustrated, but even the broadcast guests on the sidelines could not hold back the anger in their hearts and angrily expressed their opinions, he is the former Italian legend and legendary defender of Inter Milan Bergomi. Spalletti's peer didn't give him face at all, and directly said that there was a problem with the bald coach's line-up, such as letting Barella play in the left midfield was a complete failure, and Italy should not play like this even if the staffing is not as good as other traditional giants, and he has to be responsible for the defeat.
So what does Spalletti think about this defeat and his own performance? "I'm responsible for everything that happened, I picked this team," he said. I'm not happy with the performance in this game and I'm not happy with the Spanish team before. It's part of the process. The other coaches have played 20 games before taking the team to the European Championships, but I only played 10 games, and we were always criticised – 'you have to win, you have to win'. I may need to know my team better to be able to schedule the game better. We still have some players injured and I could have counted on them. That said, Spalletti himself has no plans to resign at this time.
After the game, angry fans expressed their displeasure on social platforms, one of which was that they wanted the team to fire Spalletti immediately, but according to a report from the country's well-known journalist Schira, the Italian Football Federation's top brass did not seem to want to do so. He said that although the chairman Gravina is very dissatisfied with the team, at the moment he still wants to keep Spalletti in the position, and now what they need to do is to analyze and summarize the problems that have arisen in the team in this competition and quickly start to solve them.
Text/Beiqing Sports Zhang Kunlong