Italy are the defending European champions, but after Luciano Spalletti replaced Roberto Mancini last September, they are still taking the tentative first steps of a new era. Spaletti course-corrected their qualification campaign to get them to Germany but, like at Euro 2020, victory would come as an almighty surprise…
The manager
Luciano Spalletti was supposed to be on sabbatical. He left newly-crowned Serie A champions Napoli last summer with the intention of spending a year on his country estate in Tuscany. The only vintage Spalletti planned to concern himself with was the latest Sangiovese from his vineyard. Not the 2024 Azzurri.
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But in August, the president of the Italian FA, Gabriele Gravina, called. Roberto Mancini had quit, citing differences over a reshuffle of his coaching staff. A reshuffle he initially endorsed. Weeks later, Saudi Arabia announced Mancini as their new national-team head coach on a contract reportedly worth €18million (over £15m) a year.
Spalletti answered his nation’s call and braced himself for a legal challenge from Napoli. They had unilaterally extended his deal after winning the league in 2022-23, only to respect his wishes to walk away. As he was technically still on their books, Napoli could launch a legal challenge over a non-compete clause. But one never came.
It has been a dramatic 10 months since, to say the least.
Spalletti inherited a team who had lost at home to England in qualifying and also found themselves below Ukraine in the group table.
His first international break came amid a clamour to drop goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma. His second in October was disrupted by a betting scandal that ended in the suspension of midfielder Sandro Tonali until this August. His third a month later brought automatic qualification after a goalless away draw with Ukraine, who were adamant Mykhailo Mudryk should have been awarded a penalty for a foul by Bryan Cristante in stoppage time.
Patriotism aside, Spalletti could be forgiven for thinking: ‘Why didn’t I stay in the winery?’.
The household name in waiting
Federico Dimarco is my choice. Left-backs tend to be the players who sneakily elevate Italy’s play at major tournaments. That was true of Antonio Cabrini in 1982, Fabio Grosso in 2006 and Leonardo Spinazzola at those previous Euros three years ago. Spinazzola has rarely hit the same heights since his Achilles tear against Belgium in the quarter-finals of that tournament. Luckily, Dimarco has fulfilled his potential at Inter Milan in the meantime. Elsewhere, Spalletti has rolled the dice and taken chances on 16 players with fewer than 10 caps. Riccardo Calafiori, the defender-midfielder hybrid, was one of the breakout stars of Bologna’s Champions League qualification. Italy’s injuries at centre-back present an opportunity for him and Alessandro Buongiorno of Torino.
Strengths
Italy played counter-cultural football at the last Euros. A midfield of Marco Verratti, Jorginho and Nicolo Barella was able to take control of games. Spinazzola and Lorenzo Insigne attracted so much attention on the left that Federico Chiesa often found himself in a one-on-one on the other flank. When the team lost Spinazzola and had to dig in, centre-backs Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonucci came to the fore.
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Of the starting XI from three years ago, only three or four remain.
Donnarumma was player of the tournament at the last Euros and despite a poor game for Paris Saint-Germain against Barcelona during April’s Champions League quarter-finals when, unusually for a player his size, he seemed reluctant to come for crosses, he has had a fine season overall.
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Italy had strength in depth in defence until injuries ruled Francesco Acerbi and Giorgio Scalvini out of the tournament. While Alessandro Bastoni and Gianluca Mancini have played in European finals for their clubs, they lack the experience of hall-of-famers such as Chiellini and Bonucci. The full-backs are underrated. In midfield, Barella and Davide Frattesi, the Inter team-mates, give genuine propulsion to the midfield. Frattesi has been in Barella’s shadow for their club but came up with some huge goals for his country, particularly in Spalletti’s first win against Ukraine.
Overall, this is a team in transition and, as was the case at Euro 2016 when Antonio Conte was in charge, the principal strength has to be the coaching.
Weaknesses
In eight games under Spalletti, four different strikers have got on the scoresheet — and yet it doesn’t feel like 2006 when Marcello Lippi counted on Luca Toni, Filippo Inzaghi, Alessandro Del Piero and Vincenzo Iaquinta for World Cup goals.
Ciro Immobile hasn’t played for Italy since starting Spalletti’s first game against North Macedonia. He dropped Gianluca Scamacca for the March internationals and got the reaction he wanted from the Atalanta striker, who ended the season with 26 goals and assists. Giacomo Raspadori is a classic Spalletti false nine but hasn’t played regularly for Napoli.
Argentina-born Mateo Retegui has been prolific with four goals in six caps and did enough to persuade the media in the spring friendlies in the U.S. that he should be Italy’s main No 9. But then Scamacca finished the season like a man on a mission and the debate reopened.
While a prolific striker would be welcome, the lack of one didn’t stop Italy winning those Euros three years ago. A greater issue is the absence from the tournament of the injured Domenico Berardi and the poor season of Chiesa who has, for now, looked a shadow of the player who lit up the latter stages of Euro 2020. Spalletti has a lot to sort out. The defence has barely played together and for all the intrigue around the selection of Nicolo Fagioli in midfield so soon after his betting ban, the dynamic of the midfield in a post-Verratti squad (Verratti is playing in Qatar at 31) remains to be seen.
Here’s something you won’t know
Spalletti invited Del Piero, Giancarlo Antognoni, Roberto Baggio and Francesco Totti to Italy training, in the hope that some of their creativity would rub off on the current Italy squad. “I’d like to bring four No 10s who played in the World Cup to Coverciano (Italy’s base near Florence),” he said. “Imagine if the 40 (four 10s) were able to attend one of our training sessions. It’d push the boys to elevate their performance levels.”
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Expectations back home
“We are the defending champions, so we cannot back down or shirk our responsibility to do our best,” Spalletti said.
Winning the Euros against England at Wembley was epic and unexpected. On their side of that triumph, Italy missed out on qualification for successive World Cups as the national team bounced from one extreme to another.
The draw for the group stage this summer followed a similar dynamic. Spain and Croatia are difficult opponents, and yet in Euro 2012, Italy started in a group containing those two and reached the final. Making the last eight this time would be acceptable.
The thing to remember is Spalletti hasn’t been in the job a year; even in the event he can accelerate the process of getting his ideas across in the few days left before the tournament, including warm-up friendlies against Turkey and Bosnia-Herzegovina, he needs more time before this team are truly his.
Italy’s Euro 2024 squad
Goalkeepers: Gianluigi Donnarumma (PSG), Guglielmo Vicario (Tottenham), Alex Meret (Napoli).
Defenders: Alessandro Bastoni (Inter), Matteo Darmian (Inter), Alessandro Buongiorno (Torino), Gianluca Mancini (Roma), Riccardo Calafiori (Bologna), Giovanni Di Lorenzo (Napoli), Raoul Bellanova (Torino), Federico Dimarco (Inter), Andrea Cambiaso (Juventus), Federico Gatti (Juventus).
Midfielders: Nicolo Barella (Inter), Davide Frattesi (Inter), Bryan Cristante (Roma), Lorenzo Pellegrini (Roma), Nicolo Fagioli (Juventus), Jorginho (Arsenal), Michael Folorunsho (Hellas Verona).
Forwards: Federico Chiesa (Juventus), Giacomo Raspadori (Napoli), Mateo Retegui (Genoa), Gianluca Scamacca (Atalanta), Mattia Zaccagni (Lazio), Stephan El Shaarawy (Roma).
(Top photo: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)