No one is more intense and runs more meters than Gattuso. He is irreplaceable. De Rossi is great, but he doesn't put fear in his opponents as Gattuso does. You might be right about the lack of creativity, but Pirlo was more than enough for that in our mid. What we lacked is speed and creativity in our forwards against France. Donny played a conservative, ball winning game where possession and slow tempo were important, I guess. Gattuso is like our anchor in the mid, you need at least one of those types of players if you want to play with creative mids, IMO.
Del Piero is to old to be playing on the national team. As of late every time he's been played as a started on the national team he's failed to deliver. The last thing he managed to do was come on as a super-sub against Germany. This is the only way Del Piero should be playing on the national team. He can't handle an entire game, but bringing him on in the middle of the second half in a match where our team is fighting with everything his experience can still play a big role. I respect what Del Piero has done in his career, but I also believe people should know when to give it up. He just wants to help his country, but he doesn't have the legs he used to. If he's not strong enough to step aside then we need a coach that's strong enough to not use him based strictly on his name. For the record the same applies to Inzaghi.
A lot happens from season to season. You hardly ever have the same group of players you had during the qualifying rounds. I remember Zola scoring an important goal against England and then being lefy off the final roster for France 98. The same thing happened to Casiraghi. I have a feeling we may see many new faces come next summer.
Well I know Lippi made it a point to take to the World Cup the majority of his regulars from the last year-year and a half of the qualifying round. His strategy was to stick with a core group and have them grow together as a team over the course of the qualifiers, which is somethign that Donadoni has failed to do. But I do agree that we will see some new, and possibly unexpected faces for us at Euro though. A lot will depend on how certain players do during the second half of the current season.
I agree that Gattuso does still play a vital part of this squad. BUt at the same time as he gets older his importance will gradually reduce as he won't be able to play as strong a physical game as he used to. He also won't have the strong enough technical abilities to compensate for his age. Luckily, I can see De Rossi and Aquilani forging the same form of midfield combination in the future that Gattuso and Pirlo have contributed for all these years.
I think the future midfielders should be Pirlo, De Rossi, Aquilani, Perrotta, Gattuso and maybe Ambrosini. This is position of a strength Italy has had and need to keep it going. Del Piero is done!
Juventus striker Del Piero tells Donadoni: I'm angry http://www.tribalfootball.com/article.php?id=56767
I've never placed much faith into articles posted on a site like tribalfootball.com, but IF this story does happen to be true then perhaps Del Piero should take a hint and ask himself why exactly he was frozen out of the squad for that match. Perhaps Di Natale's 2 goal performance will help to add some clarity as well.