Italy's upcoming friendlies: Saudi Arabia, France, and Netherlands

Their best player was absent in that game too.

 

As he was against us in 2015, a match we needed to win to get seeded for this world cup, which we lost. We drew Spain as a result and the rest is history. Even then we couldn't beat a side in Sweden lmao.

 

Good, does that mean you're done Pirlopurity?

 

You haven't got a clue in the world. Our world cup winning years excluded, Italy historically has always struggled to score goals.

1994 - we made the world cup and scored just 8 goals in 7 games. Just 2 scored in the group.

1996 - group stage exit scoring 3 in 3.

1998 - 5 games played, 8 scored. Not bad but not great and just 1 scored in 2 full games in the K.O stages plus an extra 30 minutes of extra time. Cameroon and Austria were in our group and Norway our 2nd round opponent.

2000 - 9 goals scored in 6 games. Not bad, but not great for a finalist. France who beat us scored 13. Holland who played a game less scored 13. We did indeed beat them in a 0-0 penalty shootout. Use that as a troll because that's all you can do. Troll.

2002 world cup - 5 goals in 4 games. Conceded 5.

2004 - group stage exit with Sweden { lol } Denmark and Bulgaria. scored 3 conceded 2.

2008 - 3 goals scored 4 conceded in 4 games.

2010 - 4 scored 5 against in 3 games. Group stage exit.

2012 - made the final of euro 6 games played scored 6 conceded 7.

2014 - group stage exit scored 2 conceded 3.

2016 - 5 games played scored 6 conceded 2.


We were always going to finish 2nd were we? Against a side who we thrashed at euro and knocked them out in the group.


Stick to trolling and bullying because that's all you will ever have. You resort to personal insults like a big baby who's had his toy stolen off him.


You're weak. Always have been and always will be.

 

Didn't read it, except that last part. I'm truly sorry you had toys stolen from you, but I did like it better when you high fived your sock puppets Fruityfan, Pirlopurity, FabioGrosso, AC Cannoli, and the dozen others that were banned. Give us a better show kid.

And yes, we were always going to be seeded in the 2nd pot even if we beat Sweden. Learn to read, it's embarrassing.

 

Iaquinta was a highly touted young talented forward from 2002-2006. when I lived in Italy , announcers were raving at his potential. Sadly getting involved in drugs and the mafia ruined him but he could have been a great one and he did score many goals. Same with Gilardino. Inzaghi had an incredible gift for scoring goals always on the verge of being offside. His talent as a goalscorer isn’t readily available today among Italian players. Same can be said for Vieri. Italy just doesn’t have these types of players any longer.

While Paolo Maldini was playing and losing his third straight World Cup in 1998, Fabio Grosso was playing for an amateur side called Renato Curi. He and Materazzi won the 2006 WC by themselves with their goals. Nesta was hurt but next to Baresi and Scirea, he was in my opinion Italy’s best sweeper/stopper in the last 20 years. Cannavaro had a great WC and was also incredibly talented defender. Seeing him play his heart out at Napoli and Parma in his younger days was a lot of fun.

I miss seeing all of those players. I wish we had one of those guys currently,

Sadly, I don’t think there is one prime WC aged Italian superstar playing in today’s Serie A that I can name.

 

Looking forward to tomorrow, i'm feeling optimistic and i'm even leaving work early to watch the game.

 

.............and yet they still tied lowly Tunisia.

The point I'm getting at is it's only a friendly.

 

The only problem with that logic is a big reason we aren't in the World Cup this year is because we lost friendlies that eventually put us into Pot 2 which led to us being drawn in the same group as Spain.

So while I agree, these are just friendlies, they aren't completely meaningless.

 

Just wondering how it would be if the Italian national team got together more often, say maybe 2 times or even once a month?

As it is, I don't think the same core group plays more than 5-7 games in an entire calendar year. I know everyone is in the same boat but I only care about Italy and maybe Italians need more time to find cohesion as oppposed to others?

Not sure really but the closer it is to the WC opener and not seeing an Italy in it is kind of devestating. I remember Arrigo Sacchi tried to plan a stage of national team players once month but that was right before he quit as CT I believe and that idea was out the door.

 

If you bothered to read the post, then clearly you would have gleaned I did not say that. The fact that I am not a blind fanboy like you doesn't equate to not having reasonable opinions. To the contrary, reading almost everything you write through your blue-colored lenses is a waste of time. You can simultaneously love this side and recognize the limitations we have. Only a complete imbecile would think that everything in honky dory when a nation with the glorious footballing tradition we have is doing okay where we just failed to qualify for the World Cup, something that seemed unfathomable years back.

If you were the slightest bit objective and/or recognized latest trends in Italian football, you would understand that we aren't producing the same quality of talent we have in years past. This undercuts your opinion that we will automatically rise again due to the "law of averages" as you put it.

We only get there by making radical changes. Sacking a complete imbecile in Ventura and replacing him with Mancini isn't enough. We need to look at the German model after they went through crisis years back.

Now I'll let you get back to telling everyone how Chiesa will be the next Ronaldo, and Romagnoli, the next Baresi.

 

Did you read carefully. I said we have the potential to be a second tier team under Mancini, not that we were already. And no I would say Sweden is more of a third or fourth tier team.

 

If it were four years ago and Ibra was in his prime, Sweden could make it to the semifinals. As they are now, I doubt they will make it beyond the second round. Italy on the other hand, mo matter how crappy they play in the qualifiers , is always a favorite.

That’s not coming from me that’s just a fact. I’m betting they would be among on of the favorited teams to gain a semifinal birth had they made it.

 

With guys playing club football most of the year, it's hard to do that.

It's definitely an issue tho. It's extremely hard to find any cohesiveness playing that few amount of games together in a given year.

If it could somehow be done tho, it would give an advantage I believe over other teams. I'm almost thinking it would have to be done at a club level. Maybe other national teams that have more guys that play together at club level, have an advantage.

 

We still are better than Sweden.

It's just when things are left to a two legged match to determine who goes to the World Cup, things happen.

IMO the biggest mistake we made was dropping out of Pot 1. We put ourselves into this position.

 

Between WC and Euro, Italy is always in the thick of things. In the last 40 years, I'm counting like 12 positive results. On average that is only every 3.3 years. That aint bad and not too many countries on earth can boast such a record.

1978 4th place
1980 4th place
1982 Champions
1988 Semi Final
1990 Third Place
1994 Runners-up
1998 Quarter Final
2000 Runners-up
2006 Champions
2008 Quarterfinal
2012 Runnersup
2016 Quarterfinal

 

This mentality is what put us in the spot that we're in. Winning friendlies = gaining points in fifa rankings.

 

I don't know about that. watch Grosso in his prime and he use to beat guys on the wing with ease with the ball. he was a quality LB and for being 6'3 pretty nimble

 

Is Italy on par with Germany on paper?

 

Shades of other user names in here as of late....stinky stinky sock accounts....pewwww

Welcome to the International thread !!! Where the biggest display of closet psycho shut ins and idiots come to gather for a grand shit show of calcio knowledge !!

I seriously question if some in here are actually Italian from the stuff that comes out of their closed in worlds.....Some of them don't know and understand the culture , at all , that's for sure.

This ain't Soccaaa folks

 

Grosso used to be a forward before switching to defender I believe. Just a fun statistic, Paolo Maldini played in 902 games and scored 33 goals while Fabio Grosso played in only 432 and scored 34 goals. He also contributed in Italy's WC win including a goal against Germany and the WC winning pk. Maldini missed a pk in Italy's Euro 2000 semifinal against Holland. Maldini was the best defender of all time but Grosso along with Matrix will both go down in history for being the main protagonists in Italy's 2006 trophy.

 

We lost friendlies to Germany, Spain and Belgium in that period with experimental sides, ie; Conte not using his preferred formations. I've always believed that friendlies should be used this way, to test out contingency lineups, B and C formations, with little risk. The problem is the weighting given to friendlies now. You can't just experiment without risk anymore. You're forced to go win first. This is a problem. It completely defeats the purpose of friendlies. So what do you do? Avoid seasoned teams with their first lineups and go with the mediocre ones just to rack up points and miss the opportunity to see what experimental squads can provide against top squads?

All that said, we should have beaten Sweden and none of that would have mattered. Beside Ventura losing the squads trust and playing lazy long ball tactics, we had Belotti miss an open netn and Insigne trying too hard to dribble into the box. Had Belotti hit that, we'd probably be in. He didn't.

In the past we'd recover 1 goal down in record time. We really need to have our strikers finish better. That would be focus #1. There's too many nerves getting triggered in the box these days.

 

bingo

 

we make better vino then them...not so sure about soccer players these days... but we will be back

 

For a country like Italy we sometimes forget how well we do even if we think we did bad. The problem is that being who we are, we have high expectations. Nothing wrong with that. However, there is a bit of q substantial decline with the talent we are producing and what the national team should mean to players and coaches. I don't see us having an Italy calibur strong team in the near future. We'll always be good and a force, but not where we need to be for a while with these players.

I'll leave this here.