One of the basic rules that every chef will tell you without thinking is that pasta, soup or some other specialty is never to be eaten too hot.
This seems not to be the case with football though, since the Italian national team looked dead-cold against the Brazilians at Emirates. Team spirit that lead them towards the 2006 World Cup crown seems gone under the undergoing age of its players who looked like ghosts on the field.
We know this was only a friendly game and that Azzuri tend to be too effortless on the prep games. However, it is all just a mask when you play against Brazil since no one can feel comfortable with being completely ridiculed, especially if they are World champions.
After the game, Lippi was very quick to notice that Brazil are a better team right now, but that his team will reach the same quality level within a year or two. Still, he failed to explain why he is so convinced that 18 months of time will make his Cannavaro, Grosso, Pirlo, Zambrotta, Toni and Camoranesi younger and better players than they are today.
It is simple, Italy is living in the past and spirits of 2006 and the easygoing on world champions are ever-present. So called Senators are protected from every criticism and the attempts to coax players like Totti and Nesta back in the national team are nothing more than nostalgia.
Lippi is spending his time in vain, at the time when World Championship is to be played, his trusty bunch will be so far away from top-class football. Looking at the Azzuri’s midfield, we couldn’t help noticing they seemed like the innocent by-standers against the mobile Brazilians. In order to push the dirt under the carpet Italian-style, everyone’s been talking about the Grosso’s disallowed goal that would’ve changed the course of the game…but, it is only a feeble attempt to hide what everyone is aware of and that this team’s date has expired.
Italian youth selections are dominant among their peers, but those players tend to lose their quality because they are not given the chance in big clubs. In their ever weakening league they are slowly losing breath behind their peers from other countries. 2006 triumph was a legacy of the time when Serie A was a leading football league in Europe, a legacy of a generation on its death bed, unable to keep Italy on top of the football iceberg.
Take Fiorentina’s Montolivo as an example. Without a complete sense of reality, he is being called “baby Gerrard” at the Apennines. Manager gave him a shot and the boy looked like those kids collecting balls compared to the Brazilian midfield and his club-mate Felipe Melo…
The entire Italian population is puzzled over the next best move. Braver nations brought young forces in their national teams and sacrificed the World Championship…at the end, it doesn’t matter if you are eliminated in the first round or the quarter-finals, it is all the same. Pitiful Italians will probably go to Africa with a geriatric squad and we wouldn’t be surprised to see Paolo Maldini in Johannesburg.
Scent of death is in the air, but it will take a disaster to open one of the world’s greatest football nations’ eyes.
Just imagine this back line:
Zambrotta 34 years, Cannavaro 38, Nesta 35, Grosso 34…on the hot African sun against leo Messi and Serhio Aguero?
We just hope Buffon will not read this…
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You don’t know much about Italian football if you think that’ll be the back four in South Africa.