0-2, the biggest upset of this European Championship was born, the Italian team fell at the feet of the Swiss team and missed the quarterfinals, which is also the biggest setback for the Azzurri in international competitions since missing the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
Truth be told, the Italian team was certainly slightly better than the Swiss team, both in terms of world ranking and overall strength, but in the end they still lost.
Why?
On the surface, the players' skills are inferior, but in fact, from a deep level of analysis, I personally think that it is due to the competition between Juventus and Inter.
Not only are the two Serie A giants in direct competition in terms of athletics, transfers and sponsorships, but they have almost also extended their tentacles to the national team.
Juve's arrogance did subside after the "phonegate" and "fake accounts" incidents, and began to shrink the front, while Inter took the opportunity to win the Serie A title in the 2020-21 and 2023-24 seasons, and even second-rate teams such as Napoli were wiped out, and won the title once last season.
This season, however, as Juventus and UEFA gradually reconciled, they began to show their ambitions again, although the Bianconeri missed out on the title in the Serie A race due to former boss Allegri's overconfidence and hubris. But at the national level, Juventus still won strategically, not only inserting team legend Gianluigi Buffonian into the management of the Italian national team, but also driving former coach Roberto Mancini, who had long been disappointing, to Saudi Arabia and replace him with Spalletti.
As the new champion of Serie A, Inter has as many as 5 players selected for this national team, including Barella, Frattesi, Dimarco, Bastoni and Darmian. Because of who to recruit into the national team, Spalletti may not be said alone, but how to use it and what formation to play, he has the absolute right to speak.
To tell the truth, if you really want to let the Italian national team go further, Spalletti doesn't have to bother too much, imitating Inzaghi Jr. to play 352, playing Switzerland will not be a problem, and even going on to kill England to reach the semi-finals.
Sadly, Spalletti doesn't do that, playing just four games and always tossing and turning between a back three and a back four, and sometimes even suspects that he is training on a game and doesn't want to win.
What's even worse is that Spalletti also struggled with the use of Inter players, setting up obstacles everywhere to make them extremely uncomfortable.
Barella, the absolute core of the Inter midfielder, was directly discarded by Spalletti, either limited to the left side where he was not good at, or used as a striker, exhausted.
And Bastoni, who is obviously a player on the left, was assigned to the right side, and was even nailed to the position of dragging back the central defender, and his long-pass offensive ability disappeared directly.
And the poor Nerazzurri prince Dimarco was used as a full-back and had to use his small size to mark and steal positions. In addition, Frattesi and Darmian have also struggled due to their unfamiliarity with the back four.
Spalletti did this, obviously using the results of the national team to submit a nomination to Juve, Inter players did not perform well in the national team, and Juventus must have benefited the most.
Not to mention the big aspect, when recruiting in the future, when a player is favored by Juventus and Inter at the same time, the player will definitely still think about his future position and future in the national team, not only in the Italian national team, but also in other countries.
It is worth mentioning that although the European Championship was lost, the Italian Football Federation now seems to have the intention of letting Spalletti continue to lead the Italian team to the 2026 World Cup.
This is very scary, it is possible that the infighting between Juventus and Inter will continue in the national team, causing their results to continue to be unstable, and it is even unknown whether they can get a ticket to the World Cup finals.
Finally, it must be mentioned that the Italian team has already missed two World Cups in a row, will they hope for a third? That's really hurt! Definitely bad news for fans who love the Azzurri.