Cesare Prandelli under pressure ahead of Euro 2012 qualifier against Serbia (Part 2)
Cesare Pandelli’s life as the coach of the Italian national side was thrown a caution when Serbia crashed to a shock 3-1 home defeat against Estonia on Friday. But the caution changed to a threat when his side failed to beat a spirited Northern Ireland side
in Belfast and now he is desperate for a result against Nemenja Vidic’s Serbia in Genoa on Tuesday.
Serbia’s loss to Estonia has thrown the group wide open but Italy still remain firm favourites and in pole position to emerge as group winners. But they need a result against Serbia on Tuesday to make sure that their fortunes remain in their own hands.
It is not that Pandelli has not tried to bring changes in the Italian squad since his arrival at the side to give the 2006 World Cup winners a chance to add to their only European success in 1968 but so far the changes have not paid off dramatically.
Against Ivory coast at Upton park on the 10th of August Pandelli won the public hearts. He responded to the ever increasing clamour and ignored Lippi by bringing back the bad boy of Italian football, Antonio Cassano, after a series of fine performances
for Smapdoria.
He also handed Mario Balotelli, another player who finds it hard to refrain from controversies, his Italian debut but the gamble did not pay off as Italy cashed to a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Didier Drogba’s side.
All of Pandelli’s tactics did not pay off and in fact provided his critics more ammunition and the misery was compounded when Italy opened their Euro 2012 qualifying campaign with an unimpressive and scrappy 2-1 win against Estonia.
However, Cesare’s men did respond in the next game by thrashing Faroe Islands 5-0 but that was only Faroe Islands and they hardly provided the acid test to the credentials of 4 time World Champions. The goals flew in just at the right time for Pandelli’s
men.
But since that day the graph has drastically fallen down and Italy have failed to score twice in their last four games and that fact forced the Gazzetta Dello Sport to come up with a line saying that the Italian strikers can’t see the net.
If you take the five goals against Faroe out, Italy have only scored 8 goals in their last nine games. And it simply does not matter if Pandelli plays Alberto Gillardino, Antonio Cassano, Balotello, Vincenzo Iaquinta, Di Natale, Mario Borriellio, Marco Ballotelli,
Luca Toni or Simone Pepe up front, the goals simply have not flown in with any measure of frequency and that is a grave cause of concern for Pandelli going into the match against Serbia.
Pandelli has tried to bring in some changes and all of it has not been in vain. He showed the door to Fredrico Marchetti and Morgan De Sanctis and opted for Salvatore Sirigu of Palermo for the games against Estonia and Ivory Coast before passing the gloves
on to Emiliano Viviano against Northern Ireland in the absence of Gigi Buffon.
Pandelli also made an inspired call when he called Stefano Mauri for the game against Northern Ireland after his impressive performances for Lazio.
But all of these changes have not paid the dividends that Pandelli had hoped for despite all of them being seen as positive changes by the media and the fans and now the jury is out on Pandelli’s case.
If he fails against Serbia in Genoa on Tuesday then the manager may well be as good as gone and for a team of Italy’s stature that will be nothing short of a calamity.
Tags: