Only France exit from world cup can top Italy bowing out of the World cup
That Italy bowed out with a 2-3 defeat against first–timers Slovakia in the first round at the FIFA World Cup in South Africa was a definite shocker for the footballing world. Only France’s mutinous disgrace could top it and the un-befitting end for both the 2006 finalists showed how increasingly unpredictable this year’s tournament has been.
It’s been a triumph for the Latinos over their European counterparts in this football story, whereas the Asian and African teams have managed to stay the course of expectations.
It was the first time in 36 years that the Azzurri exited in the group stages and the unforgiving Italian press was going through an inevitable period of blistering lament.
"It's total darkness," said La Gazzetta dello Sport. "The worst Italy we have ever seen go out."
Tutto Sport compared the team to mozzarella cheese, while La Gazzetta said time had caught up with an ageing squad in the end.
"Like Dorian Gray's mirror, on this afternoon in Johannesburg we saw the picture of an old, defeated team without a style of play or any ideas, outclassed technically and physically by a modest Slovak team," the paper said.
The usual period of self-analysis by the players followed while their manager arranged for a flight home along with their bitter French rivals. But unlike the les Bleus, it was a show of solidarity in the Azzurri camp.
Lippi took all blame saying , ”When a team goes into a match as important as this with fear in their stomachs and heavy legs, it’s because the coach hasn’t prepared them well enough mentally, physically and tactically, but above all mentally.”
But left footed defender Criscito disagreed, "We share the blame among ourselves, we were never able to do what the coach asked of us," he said to fifa.com. "Today he wanted us to press them and, instead of doing that, we sat back and waited for them."
Buffon, who played a mere 46 minute before succumbing to a back injury in their first game, against Paraguay, reckoned they lacked creativity in the middle.
What was clear was that without prima donnas like Miccoli, Cassano, Balotelli and to a certain extent even the ageing Totti, squad unity was never an issue and you could suddenly understand why Lippi chose such a line up. He simply went with that secret ingredient X which brought home the World Cup last time around.
The early ignominious defeat of World Champions Italy, who’ve failed to win a single game and have scored just two points to end up at the bottom of a table that they were expected to top easily, has, while being a big story no doubt, been somewhat unsurprising.
The quality of the current team has been the most suspect in the past 50 years of their World Cup history. A major chunk of the squad have been from Juventus who disappointed greatly this season, finishing a lowly 7th in Serie A and conceding a mammoth 56 goals.
Considering how Buffon, Cannavaro and Chiellini all hail from this failing defence, you couldn’t magically expect better in South Africa. The squad depth of 2006 has risen up to the first 11 this time around but they’ve already been champions once and the expectations have been very low this year anyway. In such scenarios, motivation was always going to be a subject of contention. Cannavaro had been declining steadily since his 2006 high and has now entered semi-retirement with UAE based Al ‑
Ahli. His two glaring errors in the first two games both of which led to goals seemed good enough reasons for his sojourn.
But despite their ageing, lack of creativity or technical quality, all of which were bound to be handicaps against top teams, couldn’t Italy seep through an easy group F?
They’ve always been slow starters, leaving most crucial moments to the last stage, sitting tight and comfy until then and blitzing in the small time window in the end in an efficient and cunning manner. It was the same against Paraguay, New Zealand and even their last game defeat against Slovakia.
Every match had a pacey and tense last 20 minutes wherein the Azzurri will create and threaten more than they did throughout the match: proof of both quality and desperation.
However, in this occasion, they ran out of time in all three games. Their hesitance to get out of their comfort zone proved their undoing against unfancied opposition and the key to this can only be motivation.
Like the lions who wouldn’t attack when full, the Azzurri camp never really expected to win back-to-back world Cups and this made them let go of the acceleration a bit too much to successfully implement their late onslaught.
So now, it’s time to go home and think. Nurture the young stars that shine at the moment and rebuild a team for 2014 and hope that this early exit instils enough hunger in their Calciotores.
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