Clearly; it was ingenious the way he has gone about it winning us both qualifying groups with ease, and getting us to the Euro finals.
You mean, he qualified Italy, like always and then lost the finals of the Euros by a record amount. Not that impressive actually. If we had Capello for that tournament we might have won. He doesn't take any shit from the federation and would have called the best players that summer. We get humiliated by Spain, and people use that as a reason why Prandelli is awesome. Why? Because he rebuilt Italy after Lippi's 2nd tenure destroyed Italian soccer? Please. All Lippi did was stubbornly hold on to his favorite players too long and resisted calling the most in form players.which isactually what we are is doing now. Prandelli is not launching some kind of revolution, unless you count the spinning of a merry-go-round.
This is something that we've discussed to death, but for what it's worth, here's my two cents. Italy overperformed by reaching the 2012 semifinals, and Prandelli deserves at least some of the credit for that. Giving him a 2 year extension right BEFORE a major tournament is, however, insane. Right now, Prandelli is where talented NT coaches always seem to wind up. He's had some success and now he's sticking with some lousy players because he's used to them. Even if his NT choices were impeccable, though, Prandelli still shouldn't be given an extension before he's shown what he can do at the World Cup. What if we get knocked out in the first round? What if he fields a team composed of 11 clones of Aquilani and loses to Costa Rica? This Italy team should, at minimum, win its group and get to the quarter-finals. If we do worse than that, Prandelli should be gone. I would even go so far as to say that he should be gone if we can't reach the semis. Italy used to demand OVERPERFORMANCE from its coaches, not just meeting expectations. Remember when we fired Zoff because he "only" got us to within 5 minutes of winning the European Cup?
Or Capello may have adopted his usual pragmatic approach, and we may not have defeated Germany; or even earned a draw against Spain the first match.
Excellent post. I think his position should come under consideration after the World Cup. We must pass the first round, without excuse. Thereafter, he should be judged on the circumstances presented. Ideally, we want to win. However, would it be fair to can Prandelli if we went out in the quarters against a Spain or Brazil, after playing well and having a big officiating decision unfairly go against us?
Yeah right! Capello has won the champion's league. Prandelli has never won jack shit. I think Prandelli being coach this long is the federation's way of saying this generation of Italians is shit and they are not going to win anything. Why else would they hold on to a sub-standard coach for so long unless they were purposely trying to diminish the expectations of the people.
Italy never had big name coaches other than Sacchi, Trapattoni, and Lippi. All other coaches were managing small teams or were coaching for the youth teams.
You will notice that the three coaches you mentioned all came after Azeglio Vicini screwed the pooch during Italia 90, so it looks like for a while at least, they got the picture. Now, they are taking huge steps backwards. Whether people want to open their eyes to the fact or not, Italian soccer is in dire straits. The denial has gotten so bad that people are using a record loss as vindication that calcio is back on top!? This is the weakest I have ever seen Serie A. Our top teams stand no chance against the other European elite and are so packed with foreigners that I find it hard to call them Italian teams. Remember the almighty, all-Italian defense of Milan? GONE! Remember when Juve always had the best Italian fantasista, like Baggio or Del Piero? GONE! Remember the Sette Sorelle? GONE! Remember when the under 21 would win in Europe regularly? GONE! Remember the days when Italy produced some of the best players on the planet and we did not need Africans or South Americans on the team to stay competitive. GONE! So yes my brothers and sisters, Italy is definitely in a crisis and my feeling is that Prandelli is not the man to take us from it. IMO, Prandelli will become a 'Vicini' like figure in that future generations will look upon and wonder if Italy could have won Euro 2012 and stood a better chance in Brasil if we had a decent coach.
Great post Scorp. As usual your passion comes through and you take the time to back up your opinion with facts. But answer me this. If Italian football is in such dire straits (which incidentally I agree with) how can you conceivably be so critical of Prandelli. He convincingly got us to two major tournaments (qualified for WC and Euro with games to spare) and he got us to the final of the Euros. Add creditable performance in Confeds in there as well. He has only ever lost competitive fixtures to Spain and Brazil in Brazil. And of all this when Serie A and the pool of NT talent is the weakest it has ever been in my lifetime. This will be my 7th WC. Compare his record to previous allenatore. Now of course losing 4 nil stings but is that your pride talking and not willing to let go. Padre Pio would tell you that pride is a sin and that “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18.
@totti fan ... great post. @Scorp you are clearly passionate about the NT but you can't have your cake and eat it. Either this generation is great and Prandelli is wasting it, or it's a poor generation and he is overperforming. The final against Spain was unfortunate and both Del Bosque and Casillas admitted as much. Prandelli has his shortcomings especially in regards to selections but a lot of the managers in the summer have their own biases/favouritism too and one can only hope Prandelli's wont be costlier than the others. PS: Capello has failed in KO tournaments with superior squads/better fancied sides than this Italy (Champions League with Juventus 04-06 and with Madrid in 07)
@totti fan ... great post. @Scorp you are clearly passionate about the NT but you can't have your cake and eat it. Either this generation is great and Prandelli is wasting it, or it's a poor generation and he is overperforming. The final against Spain was unfortunate and both Del Bosque and Casillas admitted as much. Prandelli has his shortcomings especially in regards to selections but a lot of the managers in the summer have their own biases/favouritism too and one can only hope Prandelli's wont be costlier than the others. PS: Capello has failed in KO tournaments with superior squads/better fancied sides than this Italy (Champions League with Juventus 04-06 and with Madrid in 07)
I have just one question for you. What did you expect Prandelli to do with the talent he inherited as CT? I hoped only not be embarrassed in the Euro. Do I need to list the players the other CTs had at their disposal and compare them to Marchisio and Montolivo to make my point or do you simply refuse to acknowledge that Prandelli exceeded the expectations of most Italians? I disagreed with some of his decisions in that tournament and others, but to pretend that we did not live up to expectations is absurd. In the words of my favorite poet Pino Daniele... "Fatte 'na pizza c'a pummarola 'ncoppa vedrai che il mondo poi ti sorriderà"
Who are you to say that Prandelli will not get a job at one of the biggest clubs AFTER the World Cup? Especially if Italy AGAIN exceeds the expectations of the FIGC. He was younger than the others you mentioned when he became CT. Perhaps he should have won a Champion's League coaching Milan when he was thirty years of age? Remind me again when a young coach wins big with an Italian Club? Because I don't remember it.
Good point. And if we're going to single out Prandelli because of the 4-0, how can Scorp and a few others mention Lippi in a positive manner? Am I the only one who watched us go out in the first group in 2010? I will always see that as a much bigger tragedy than losing in a Euro Final. I criticize Prandelli when I disagree, but I did the same with Lippi, Trap, Sacchi, and even Bearzot. Does no one else remember the disaster of 1984 (failing to qualify for the Euro) and 1986 (going out in the final 16 against France), both accomplished by the beloved Enzo Bearzot? The truth is that coaching Italy is a very difficult job, and there are no guarantees regardless of the CT selected.
Capello had incredible Juventus clubs and crashed out of CL. I don't see how you can highlight the good and ignore the bad.
Juventus never really had much luck in the CL. I mean not compared to Milan but I don't think the WC tournament is comparable to the CL and I also don't believe the national team can be compared to any top club because its clearly not the same thing. If anything I think club ball is better, more exciting and definitely tougher than the national team and in my opinion its a lot more attractive. Therefore, I think its kind of unfair to compare national team to most top teams because its just not the same.
I remember that. Enzo stuck with his 82 national team players in both the Euro 84 Qualifiers and he also hung on to a lot of the same in the 1986 WC. I don't recall him using too many of them but he brought Paolo Rossi and Marco Tardelli who hadn't really done much in 4 years but Bearzot remained loyal to them for what they did in 82. I don't think that will happen any longer though. What I couldn't believe was how Enzo made Salvatore Bagni mark Maradona just because thye playedf together at Napoli but he should have had Fernando DeNapoli man mark him because even though they were later teammates, Maradona never touched the ball against Avellino when Nando marked Diego out of the match. I think Enzo was at the end of the line at that point and the game had started to change and evolve and it showed.
Yeah, there's no big mystery about 1984-6. It's exactly what Lippi did in 2008-10. Players go past their peak very quickly in football, and you need periodic shakeups just to prevent coaches from living in the past. Which is precisely why I worry about Prandelli's contract extension: not because I think that Prandelli is a bad coach, but because I think that you can take the best coach in the world and he will still develop bad habits over time. I mean, no one is going to claim that Lippi was a bad coach but he definitely made some terrible selections in 2008-10. As for the state of Italian football in general, I'm with those who agree with Scorp that Italian football is in crisis but disagree that it's Prandelli's fault. The problem goes much deeper than that: the talent pool is thinner than it used to be. I think that the problems are: 1. Financial crisis - Italian teams don't have the resources they used to have. Spanish football has been partly insulated from the shock by the dominance of Real and Barca (who have international audiences) and by a once-in-a-lifetime crop of incredible talent. Germany has improved in relative terms because their economy wasn't as affected. Obviously the strength of a league is not the same thing as the strength of a NT - England in particular has a league that is orders of magnitude better than their NT - but it does make a difference. Would Barzagli be so fat and slow if he had to mark the best players in the world every week? 2. Player preferences - young Italians used to want to become defensive midfielders or defenders, now they want to become offensive midfielders or strikers. I think that you can see this very clearly in the "final 23" thread - the choices people are fighting over are nearly all offensive midfielders or strikers. The problem becomes especially clear if you look at players under 25. We could field an under 25 team of offensive midfielders and strikers that could compete with anyone in the world, but defensively - ugh. That second part makes a huge difference, I think. Italy used to have a clear specialty in defense, which not only brought benefits in itself (catenaccio was something Italian coaches could always fall back on if they couldn't see any other way to win) but also meant that Italy never gave up easily. Take the 1998 team - it was definitely not the most talented team in the tournament, but it still managed to bring the eventual tournament winner to a penalty shootout (i.e. a coin flip) because France couldn't find a way through the Italian defense. That was a microcosm of the way Italy used to be - even in bad years, an opposing team's chances were never much better than a coin flip against us. Now we probably have more offensive options than ever before, but when we come up against a team that just has more talent overall, we can't shut them down and make them work for their victory the way we could in previous years.
I've said this before but I disagree that the problems with Italy lie in defence. Look at the top 5 players in the world by position. My list includes: Chiellini in the top 5 centre backs. Buffon in the top 5 goal keepers. Pirlo would make a list for deep-lying regista. Maybe De Rossi for central mids. But apart from that Mario is not in the top 5 nor are any of our supposed plethora of attacking players. And as far as goalies and centrebacks go Italy is still right up there in terms of world standards. Italy's leaks more goals than they used to traditionally because: they play a much more offensive and open game than previously they don't offer the threat to teams going forward that they used to which allow oppositions to play with more confidence Case in point Cannavaro. When he left Serie A for Real Madrid after 2006 he was the world player of the year and the gold standard for defenders but he found the transition to the more open style in Spain challenging. Not b/c he was somehow diminished but because it's harder to defend in some styles of play.
I like Chiellini, but if he is a top 5 defender then things are looking bad globally. He cost us the tie against Madrid f.e and has generally not been the same defender that used to own Ibra, for a while. Barzagli has been the best defender in our title winning sides.
I understand your reasoning but typically our backs are the undisputed best in the world. We have no Cannavaro, Nesta, Baresi, Maldini, Scirea, Gentile etc...and I think it hurts. A one goal lead for Italy was once considered the end of the match. Chiellini and Barzagli would have been substitutes on any of those squads, and Bonucci would not have made any of those teams.
OK but what I'm saying is we have fallen away in other areas more. Relative to other sides our defence isn't that bad. Are Spain's centre backs that much better than ours, Argentina's, Germany's etc. And the gap between say Chiellini and Cannavaro is not as big as between Baggio and Diamanti for example.
World class defenders are hard to find these days not only in italy, but in other countries as well. It isn't only an italian problem.
Buffon and Chiellini notwithstanding, the days of the great Italian defenders are gone. To think one of the greatest center backs of all time in Ferrara, was either injured, out of form and/or sparingly used with the NT. The same goes for Baresi in 82 or for that matter not even being picked in 86. Also. Italy used to have Vierchowod who was considered (back then) a backup. Can't really imagine by today's standards that those guys were reserves. What I wouldn't give today for a Vierchowod and Ferrara in our back 4.
I agree on everything you say. It just disturbs me that we always seemed to be saying ole' as the defenders passed the ball around when we had a lead. The game was over. But I do like Prandelli's style and think we can with it. It is a difficult adjustment for me to watch however. I also wish to say that these are just more reasons to be impressed with what Cesare has done so far, not less. as some seem to think.