After the European Championship exit, the chaos of the Italian team continued, and things evolved in the direction of farce.
Whether it's Spalletti grinning around and throwing the pot, or the leaders of the Football Association constantly laughing...... The current Italian team has constant negative news, making tens of millions of Italians cry and laugh and be completely speechless.
In the process, there is a person's story worth telling, that is: Damian, who has become a backstabber again after seven years.
Italy's complete defeat to Switzerland was obviously Di Lorenzo's successive games by the opponent into a sieve, but after the game, a large number of fans on Italian social networking sites were reprimanding Damian, describing him as "one of the worst internationals in the history of the Italian team".
Why is that? Commentator Altobech points out that the reasons lie broadly in three points.
First of all, Darmian is the lowest value player in Italy, and during the tournament, there are a lot of people who make a statement with colored glasses that "whoever has a low price is bad".
In addition, after the defeat in Italy, most of the players avoided interviews and did not want to face angry fans and nationals, and only 2-3 people dared to stand in front of the microphone, and Darmian was one of them, which also made him the target of a lot of negative emotions.
Of course, the most important thing is the old grudge.
After Italy missed the 2018 World Cup (the play-offs played at the end of 2017), Ventura was attacked by tens of millions of Italian people as a "historical sinner". At the time, Damian stood up to deny some unrealistic rumours, so he was defined as a "Ventura lineage", and was later liquidated - he was sidelined from the national team for five years (still at the golden age of 27-32 at the back of the year), becoming the backbiter.
Now, 7 years later, the Italian media wants to describe Spalletti as the "second in Ventura", and with those "thought seals" back then, they once again want to catch Darmian out of the blame.
In many cases, in Western public opinion circles, it is not important what the facts and truth are, but what kind of love and hatred and what kind of position is the most important.
This raises a problem: in the Ventura era, Damian became the backstabber because he had the status of "Ventura's love general". Why did Damian become the backstabber of this chaos in the Spalletti era? He's not a handsome player, and even before the European Championships, he was just a bench substitute.
Based on the reports of major media, you can try to sort out the cause and effect of the matter.
According to the "Republic" and "Corriere della Sera", in the European Cup, Spalletti recruited a large number of players who were used to playing 352, but insisted on playing the 433 system he loved, so that he lost the support and trust of the players. Before the game, Spalletti spoke to the players in the dressing room, asking for "more respect and trust", but did not receive positive feedback from the players. Spalletti realised that his tactics might not be executed accurately by many players, and that civil unrest was suspected to have occurred, so he had to choose the most obedient and executing players to start, which is why Darmian was entrusted with the task.
In short: if I can't call anyone else, then choose Damian, who can still be called, even if I want Damian to change his position, I have to put out the fire.
Anyone who watched the game knows that Darmian, who is used to playing right central defender and right wingback in Inter, played a position that he has not played much in the past 1-2 years in the battle of Italy and Switzerland, and his performance cannot be said to be very good, but among the Italian players in this game, it is relatively good.
In fact, before the 2017 World Cup qualifying play-offs between Italy and Sweden, there was also civil unrest in the dressing room.
According to the newspaper Sport Milano, Ventura's authority at that time was strongly interfered with by the so-called "senatorial council", and its prestige was lost. In that case, the tactics set by Ventura will not be implemented by the players without discounting, so the coach can no longer think about the problem purely from a competitive point of view, but can only "who can command and move, then let whoever play".
Darmian was entrusted with a big role at the time and took the blame after the game for the same reason.
7 years ago in the World Preliminary Tournament, now in the European Cup, Italy twice had civil strife, Darmian was entrusted with important responsibilities twice, it seems to be "bad luck", in fact, it is because of a valuable quality of Darmian: the player's execution is world-class, the more the prestige of the coach wavering, the more willing to trust such a player. Darmian has been reduced to a backstabbers twice, not because he really played badly, but precisely because the players have world-class conduct, ethics, and professional attitudes.
To use an inappropriate analogy, it is like in history, when the dynasty was changed, in the declining empire, the surrender faction, the reclusive faction, and the two-faced and three-knife faction abounded. Those generals who are still willing to abide by their duties and fight with all their might are often more likely to become tragic heroes.
But is it a mistake for a player who doesn't like to get involved in civil strife and always takes the coach's demands seriously – whether that coach has rebelled or not – is that wrong? Is this really like what the bigwigs on Twitter INS said, a mortal sin?
I don't agree with that. On the contrary, I believe that it is a great thing to be conscientious and conscientious in any situation.
That's why I'm writing this article to try to defend Damian.