http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/3284...724/italy-qualify-for-2013-confederations-cup I know we still have a year. We need to take it very seriously. Brazil, Uruguay, and Spain are strong teams. We need to consider serious replacements for Pirlo and Buffon. They can sill play next year and in 2014 and they might be effective.
Confederation cup is a stupid tournament IMO, it's like the Friendly of tournaments, yeah running a test tournament at the same place the world cup will be held would make things a bit more organized and prepared but at the same time takes away a lot of the world cup flare, again that's just my opinion. World Cup & Euro are what really counts when it comes to international tournaments.
I am very happy for our qualifying for this tournament. We can surely put up a much better performance this time around. Italy has an enormous colony in Brazil, so it's well deserved that the Azzurri qualify for the Confederations Cup as well. I expect an epic clash between the two giants. It will be amazing, especially in Brazilian ground.
I thought it was very useful in 2009 since it gave Lippi an idea of how bad we were but he chose to ignore the warning signs.
That's why I said "Friendly" of tournaments, good for trying out new stuff and see how the team is doing.
One word...youth. That's a tournament where you call up the likes of Verratti and Insigne if they keep doing well.
WC qualifiers are still to be gone through....remember italy has a pretty tough group. That should be the main focus and yea prandelli needs to experiment with players other than pirlo and buffon.
+1 I hate it when people take this tournament all that serious and cry when the A team isn't all there, I say a mix of both would be good , some fixed players along with a bunch of new talent with potential, Italy Needs to prepare for the next generation of players to play along with Mario.
Nice that we qualified. Not an important competition, but I agree it would be a good test for young players trying to break into the Nazionale. The key thing though is that Prandelli has to be there, for this tournament and for Brazil 2014. He has hinted in press conferences that he misses club football--but if he really does leave it will be a disaster for our rebuilding project.
when i heard abuout this is just reminded what a disgrace lippi was the 2nd time around, im tellling you now i still believe there was something up with that team, lippi either took a knock to the head or something dodgy was going on, we were even worse in the wc than we were in the confederations, if abete knew anything about football he would have demanded which players lippi took to wc2010 or just sacked him, i know im not the only one who saw that embarresment coming, as others have said we should bring youngsters to this, provoding they do well this season, borini, insigne, veratti, destro, maybe immobile, any others you can think who might be contenders? i really crescenzi too the figc must do everthing in their powers to keep him, i want to see the end of managers like capello, ranieri etc i remember dino zoffs italy in eur02000, dismall is one way to describe it, i remember during games thinking please just knock beat us and put us out of our misserary, for 2 years now italy has been playing good football, we have got to a final playing this way, the only other person i would trust to continue this work after prandelli is zeman, that will never happen though
yea players like gigi, pirlo should be left out....half the team should be the youth getting tested, even if its only 3 games
At least getting to play in this cup , the national team will get another 3-4 games to play together . That has to be a positive for cohesion and depth.
Nah that would mean nothing, the world cup is where we'll get even hopefully (after qualifying of course lol).
Spain lost to the USA 2-0 in this Cup in 2009. Not so sure how seriously they take it but look for Italy to not take it lightly. I'm sure this 4-0 loss will sting for a while but it will also be on everyone's minds each time the national team takes the pitch this year and there is no way they will let this happen again... at least not for a while..... we hope!
i sure hope they take this to the heart and fight every single game til end of WC 2014 i think this team since 2006 has always needed some kind of boost and heart to play...prandelli has injected that back into them but not as much as i want them too....players like chiellini, diamanti, rossi type of drive
People need to stop getting all caught up in this need to call up youth right off the bat. Unless these kids can put up some solid performances for their respective clubs then there's simply no way in hell Prandelli will give them a look. Lets just hope they all manage to perform well this season domestically, adn that their clubs give them a fair shot.
It's very likely, according to the rules of the Confed. Cup draw, that the groups are going to be like this: Group A Group B Brazil Spain Italy Uruguay Japan/African Champ . Mexico Tahiti Japan/ African Champ. One thing is sure: Tahiti will be destroyed whichever opponent they'll take on.
I can't believe we lost to Egypt and Brazil 3-0 in 2009. Laquinta and Lippi. I would like to know what they were talking about. Did Lippi train Iaquinta? Did he teach him how to score? That was a little bit crazy. It was a disgrace.
Italy is in group A with Brazil, Japan and Mexico. http://www.fifa.com/confederationscup/news/newsid=1960374/index.html Wow, we got shafted.
Italy-Brazil in Confederations Cup By Football Italia staff Italy will face hosts Brazil, Mexico and Alberto Zaccheroni’s Japan in the Confederations Cup in June 2013. The Azzurri are included as representatives of Europe, having finished runners-up to World Cup winners Spain in Euro 2012. They are in Group A with the Selecao, Mexico and Japan. Spain are seeds in Group B with Uruguay, Tahiti and the as yet unknown champions of Africa. The African representative will be the winner of the African Cup of Nations in February 2013. This tournament is a traditional warm-up for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and will see many stadiums unveiled. It runs from June 15 to 30 2013, although Italy Coach Cesare Prandelli has already noted his choices will be limited by the simultaneous European Under-21 Championship. Prandelli was in Sao Paolo for the draw this afternoon and the six stadiums are the Estadio de Maracana in Rio de Janeiro, the Estadio Nacional in Brasilia, the Estadio Castelao in Fortaleza, the Estadio Mineirao in BeloHorizonte, the Arena Forte Nova in Salvador and the Arena Pernambuco inRecife. Ex-Milan and Roma star Marcos Cafu presented the new ball for the tournament, which is called the Cafusa – a combination of the Brazilian traditions Carnival, Football and Samba. Group A Brazil-Japan (Brasilia, June 15) Mexico-Italy (Rio de Janeiro) Brazil-Mexico (Fortaleza, June 19) Italy-Japan (Recife, June 19) Japan-Mexico (Belo Horizonte, June 22) Italy-Brazil (Salvador, June 22) Group B Spain-Uruguay (Recife, June 16) Tahiti-African Champions (Belo Horizonte, June 17) Spain-Tahiti (Rio de Janeiro, June 20) African Champions-Uruguay (Salvador, June 20) African Champions-Spain (Fortaleza, June 23) Uruguay-Tahiti (Recife, June 23) Semi-Finals Winner A v Runners-up B (Belo Horizonte, June 26) Winner B v Runners-up A (Fortaleza, June 27) Third Place Final Salvador, June 30 Final Rio de Janeiro, June 30