Candreva plays on the right and is more of a winger (RM in Conte's 3-5-2). Montolivo at this point in time would not at all take Verratti's position. Verratti is the best midfielder on PSG and without him their entire game falls apart (look at the ties with Chelsea and when he wasn't playing against Barcelona. Two completely different games). Guy has Xavi/Pirlo/Iniesta tier potential in the way he dictates a game. Montolivo never reached that threshold and never will. Marchisio is box to box and doesn't even play the same position as Verratti. De Rossi is similar to what Vidal is on Juventus and again, not the same position. Only Pirlo is ahead of Verratti objectively and we know that won't be for very long.
Agree with your comments re what the player roles are (except for De Rossi Vidal comparison). And sure not all of those guys are a straight swap for Verratti but depending on how the coach wants the midfield balance to look he might have more runners v passers in the mix etc. Candreva played more of an inside RM in the most recent qualifier for example. Every time I watch Verratti play for PSG or Italy he doesn't do anything that suggests to me that he is/or will be all that. And yes he plays for PSG who are champions in the 5th/6th best league in Europe. He is surrounded by a lot of very expensive players and as I have said in ad infinitum he has tremendous technical ability. But saying all that the jury is still out. With a dozen opportunities to do so he has never played an outstanding match for Italy and comparing him to Pirlo is nonsense.
Can my fellow enlightened posters please explain to me why Italy failed to progress out of the group stage in the 2014 World Cup vs making the final in Euro 2012 despite the following positive changes to the squad in 2014: no useless Montolivo sparingly using a slow/overweight Cassano that hack Giakk we got rid of him as well the inclusion of the tremendously influential and skillfull Verratti that more than made up for the above Also note the harder draw in Euros with matches against Spain (group) and Germany (semi) to navigate. And if anyone wants to say that we were lucky in 2012 beware because I will set falvo on you.
Easy our team got cocky after beating England in the first group game. I really wanted Montolivo to be there as that world cup would be his prime age but oh well. Cassano was useless and Verratti can't win games by himself, not yet.
silly question of course montolivo is world class. it's like asking is ronaldo world class? duh ....if monty was in brazil, italy at least make the semi finals instead of crashing out in the group stages again. the azzurri obviously missed montolivo's leadership. i think the squad was seriously affected by monty's injury weeks before the world cup. they obviously couldn't recover... look at milan, injured montolivo and the club finishes midtable. @NickyViola
Is this supposed to be some straw man argument as to try and make it seem that including Montolivo would have actually mattered? This doesn't prove that Montolivo is world class or anything close to it. His inclusion in 2014 or 2012 doesn't spur on the team to do what they did or didn't do. 2012: His inclusion was because Prandelli was mirroring Juventus' now famed use of the 3-5-2 because the back bone of the team was Juventus players. Sub in De Rossi for Vidal and you have the entire Juventus midfield. But they needed to flood the midfield specifically to pressure and press against Spain in the first game and De Rossi dropped deeper to cover for the centre backs. 2014: A mix of many things contributed to this. A more talented team on paper with having Pirlo, De Rossi, Marchisio and Verratti in the same midfield. The lack of getting out of the group wasn't because of our midfields. Italy set a record that even Spain didn't match in most passes in one Euro game with the highest completion percentage. We also routinely completely dominated actual possession against every opponent. Our forwards just could not put the ball back into the net. Not to mention the pathetic red card that was given undeservedly to Marchisio and Suarez not getting reprimanded for his bite on Chiellini; he would later go on to score. It was a coalescence of bad things to happen to Italy, but having a technically superior midfield thanks to the younger, more talented Verratti is not one of the bad things. No, he didn't make up for the bad that happened. But the main good points in our play at the World Cup, he was apart of. Horrible argument on your part, I'm sorry. Verratti has done more in his career at this point than Montolivo has over his entire career.
Read my post again and you'll see that I didn't make any argument, straw man or otherwise. All I provided was an interesting juxtaposition of facts which were: Montolivo in Giakk in Cassano a regular With a harder draw Italy makes final Montolivo out Giakk out Cassano a bit player Verratti in Easier draw Italy out group stage You said: Italy dominated passing and possession in their matches, it was our strikers who were wasteful: What's more important than possession is what you do with it. Italy had 60 shots at goal in the Euro group stages vs 36 in WC group stages. That is a massive difference. Our midfield was much more effective at providing goal scoring opportunities in Europe. And don't forget how frustratingly wasteful Balo was in the Euro group stages as well. And you also mentioned refereeing in 2014 which is a non-controllable and is basically equivalent to saying we were unlucky. Winners make their own luck.
@bold that was my entire point as to why your argument was pitiful. The point flew right over your head.
Montolivo is still a quality player, time will tell, I want to see him back before the end of Milan's season
Sal for this comment take your money your making from your rep and give it to your mom for me....this comment is for you Sal's mom