After a match like this, one would normally do well to take a night’s rest to carefully analyze the situation, see what went wrong, and what can be done to correct it. That is undoubtedly what Roberto Donadoni and his players will be doing over the next few days, to make sure that this debacle isn’t repeated vs. Romania.
I, on the other hand, have the luxury to live in timezone where a night’s rest isn’t necessary: at 7′o clock in the evening I can attempt to take a preliminary guess at why (oh why) Italy conceded 3 goals tonight, without scoring any.
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Culprit nº1: The Defense (in particular the center-backs)
When a team concedes 3 goals, it’s pretty obvious: it is either the defense’s fault, the goalkeeper’s fault, or both. When you have someone like Gigi Buffon, you’re pretty much covered goalkeeping-wise. Gigi’s clearance on Van der Vaart’s cross may not have been impeccable (he could have played it safe by deflecting the ball into corner), you can’t really fault Italy’s nº1 for the 1-0.
Materazzi-Barzagli now… that’s a whole other story. Before tonight, these two had played together competitively only once (and that was over a year ago). After tonight’s performance, it seems fairly obvious that that one match wasn’t enough: cohesion, covering, and man-marking were all horribly off the mark today. No one without exception thought Cannavaro’s injury would be easy to overcome, but to think that his absence would weigh so heavily onto a team which, over the years, has made of defense of their strongest weapons, was absolutely unthinkable. Over the next few days, Donadoni’s biggest efforts will have to be focused on this problem, because a solution is needed. Fast.
Materazzi‘s match (much like his season this year) was mediocre at best. My guess is that he just doesn’t have reliability anymore, he has lost his place as a starter. Barzagli wasn’t all that better to be honest, but at least one step higher than his Inter colleague. Unfortunately, alternatives aren’t exactly abundant in the Azzurri camp. Giorgio Chiellini had a phenomenal season with Juve in this role, but his recent test-match with Barzagli during practice ended with his team conceding five goals. Not the greatest of omens. Christian Panucci did a little better as he reverted to center-back during today’s match, but not by a great stretch. However, Fabio Grosso‘s rising match-form (both during training and vs. Netherlands) would make this solution the most likely choice for the match against Romania.
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Culprit nº2: The Offside
You can say whatever you want about the Azzurri’s performance: they didn’t play well, they made too many mistakes, Holland deserved their win, blah blah blah. The fact of the matter is that, at the end of the day, the pivotal point in this match was Ruud Van Nistelrooy’s 1-0 goal. Was it offside, was it not offside? The key element to consider here is Panucci’s position at the time of Van Bronckhorst’s shot. There is absolutely no question that RVN was a good 2-3 yards past Andrea Barzagli at that time, so the question is: did the linesman base his call by considering Panucci was in fact in play, or is he just fu**ing blind as a bat?
No doubt UEFA will come up with some kind of statement in the next few days to clear this up, but my take on the matter: Panucci was out of the playing field, not participating in the play, and therefore cannot be considered as keeping RVN onside. Big fu**ing mistake by the linesman in my opinion.
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Culprit nº3: Roberto Donadoni
Well, undoubtedly the coach is going to get some blame for this. Ultimately a few of his choices directly led to the Azzurri’s defeat today, but the question is: would anyone have done differently?
Starting from the Materazzi-Barzagli pick, it was undoubtedly a mistake that backfired, but in all honesty and in Donadoni’s defense: I would have chosen the exact same men. Materazzi had the experience, the reliability with the Azzurri shirt, and seemed the most ideal candidate to replace Fabio Cannavaro. Recent tests made with Chiellini-Barzagli hadn’t exactly been promising (see above), so the only other viable alternative was to put Panucci in the center and Grosso on the left. Something which, given the Lyon wing-back’s limited contribution to the defensive effort, Donadoni was probably not ready to risk.
By the same token, the Don’s choice at picking Massimo Ambrosini over Daniele De Rossi can be defended with the same arguments: “playing it safe” vs. “taking a chance”. Ambrosini gives more to the defensive effort than DDR, and his entente with AC Milan teammates Pirlo & Gattuso gives plenty of reliability (usually) to Italy’s midfield. Faced with a tough opponent like Holland, my guess is that Donadoni wanted to play the containment card early, leaving the ace of creativity to the likes of Pirlo, Di Natale, and Camoranesi. Given how things have turned out today, this was obviously the wrong choice but once again, crucifying Donadoni for it would be unjustified.
Now with that said, let’s leave the Devil’s advocate vest on the coat hanger and look at what Donadoni did do wrong (and should take blame for). Firstly the substitutions: they came too late. Had the score been only 0-1, one could have understood the Don not wanting to take too many chances just yet. However, the Azzurri were already two goals down at the break and considerably suffering in both defense & midfield. Changes were necessary to inject some creativity and at least attempt to turn things around. Grosso’s insertion for Materazzi was a good move, but was leaving Daniele De Rossi off the bench wise? Shouldn’t have more defensive players like Gattuso or Ambrosini made way for Serie A’s best midfielder this year, perhaps even for Alberto Aquilani? Finally, was keeping Cassano on the bench till minute 75 really a good idea?
The answer to all those questions, looking at tonight’s final result, is obviously no.
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Minor culprits: The Midfield and Luca Toni
Now I now what you’re going to say… “don’t you fu**ing dare touch Luca Toni, what else could he have done?!” Notice I put our beloved Bayern Munich striker in the “minor culprit” section. And the answer to that previous question is… something more. This wasn’t, by all accounts, Toni’s finest performance. He did his share for a while but at some point, collectively collapsed mentally like the rest of his teammates. That missed re-directed header for Di Natale in minute 8 and that missed shot over van der Sar in minute 75 also raise questions… you’re much better than this Luca!! We need our goalscoring machine.
Onto a “less controversial” issue: the midfield. Today, it was quite simply terrible. Not as bad as the defense mind you, but when your opponents manage to beat you in ball possession, speed, and technique quite so vividly, something’s not working right. With Ambrosini, this should have been a “contain” type of midfield. It turned out to be quite the opposite (and the defense didn’t help). Common sense suggests Daniele De Rossi should be making a start vs. Romania in 3 days’ time.
My predictive guess for Italy’s formation in the next match?
Buffon
Zambrotta, Panucci, Barzagli, Grosso
Gattuso, Pirlo, De Rossi
Camoranesi, Toni, Di Natale
And I’d say the odds of Di Natale & Del Piero are about 60/40 right now…
Tags: Andrea Barzagli, Daniele De Rossi, Euro 2008, Gigi Buffon, Italy, Luca Toni, Marco Materazzi, Massimo Ambrosini, Netherlands, Roberto Donadoni
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Many football fans not familiar with the intricacies of the offside rule will claim that RVN was offside on the first goal. Clearly, however, this was not the case. RVN was in an offside position but defender Panucci was deemed by the linesman to have played Van Nistelrooy onside even though the stopper was off the pitch and down on the touchline with what seemed like an injury. Even the president of the Italian referee association, Cesare Gussoni, thinks that Ruud Van Nistelrooy’s opening was legitimate: “The linesman applied UEFA’s ruling 100 per cent,” he said.
Ambrosini offers more defensively than De Rossi?? How can you say that Marco? De Rossi is arguably Roma’s best defender.. Mexes and Juan included.. He was phenomenal in attack, midfield, defense.. everywhere.. Ambrosini is just terrible and everyone who is not a Milan fan knew that daaays ago..
I see this as our next formation:
Buffon
Zambrotta, Panucci, Chiellini, Grosso
Aquilani, Pirlo, De Rossi
Del Piero, Toni, Di Natale
Gattuso for Aquliani may seem fair… But I think Aquliani in training and the Belgium game deserves a chance before France. I think Del Piero has played himself into the lineup.. On either side I don’t know but he got in good positions and took the pressure off of Toni for a bit.
Vic, I disagree.
Here’s what Gussoni said:
The last sentence translates to: “(…) in other words the linesman was unable to determine whether Panucci’s intentions were to purposely step off the field, in order to put Van Nistelrooy offside.”
If he was “unable to determine” that, he should have given the benefit of the doubt to the defense (as referees are instructed to do in these cases)!! Panucci got run over by Buffon! How on Earth was he intentionally stepping off the field to put RVN offside??? Makes no sense.
At the moment of GvB’s shot, Panucci is clearly off the field and not participating in play anymore. As such, he should not have been taken into consideration for the offside rule.
Bashar, I’m not saying De Rossi does not defend at all. Just that between him and Ambrosini, the Milan midfielder is more geared towards containment (and scoring the odd goal on a header) whereas De Rossi has more of a playmaking role at times, both for the Giallorossi and the Azzurri. That’s commonly established fact, it has nothing to do with any AS Roma/AC Milan rivarly.
[...] (what went wrong, who is to blame, and what Italy can do to improve the situation) see my Netherlands 3-0 Italy: The Aftermath [...]
My lineup for the next game would be:
Buffon
Zambrotta – Chiellini – Barzagli – Panucci – Grosso
De Rossi – Aquilani – Perotta
Del Piero – Toni
Considering the way the defence played 5 in the back is a necessary. Maybe even with someone taking a sweeper role. Zambrotta & Grosso provide width. A united Roma midfield. Del Piero playing a few steps behind Toni.
There is 0% of Donadoni using this strategy but that is how I`d play it.
I see the Panucci offside this way: Would Panucci have needed a ref’s permission to re-enter the field to clear a shot off the line? No. Then he is participating in play.
Will, you’d keep players like Pirlo & Camoranesi out?
Boy, you wouldn’t last longer than Fatih Terim at AC Milan…
And regarding your last sentence… thank God there aren’t any African refs at Euro huh?
We need Cassano and Del Piero. Out Camoranesi.
Romania? Not a problem! We must beat France, the last game must be perfect. I feel Netherlands will lose with Romania. I just feel that so strongly!
trust football to throw you a curveball.
the linesman made a gut call, got it wrong. unfortunately it’s the type of decision that can only be decided for sure AFTER the event since it relied on the linesman’s interpretation of the seriousness of Panucci’s injury.
However, Marco’s point is valid – Panucci was not participating in play and therefore shouldn’t have been a factor. Who knows, Italy could have come back if that goal hadn’t been given.
Still, my team for the Euros was comprehensively beaten. Nothing can dull the sadness. Oh well..
@Ahmed
At least be glad that a team with verve, style and a passion for offense got to win, instead of the boring “let’s huddle in the penalty box till we can counter” style of play the Italians like to employ.
Okay, I’m going to spell it out to people here.
Luca Toni is a joke…and arguably the worst CF to wear the Italian jersey.
“But he scored a bagillion goals for Bayer Munich!!!” Oh, did he now? Or did he just poach them in? A header here, a foot there – it’s bound to happen…he’s a poacher not a goal-scorer. He’s an opportunist not an inventor.
Listen, the man cannot move. He’s got flat feet and moves about terribly. Just watch him. Watch his athleticism. You will see that he’s incredibly awkward, incapable of dribbling or rounding his man without stumbling about like he’s some insectoid or drunk.
I’m sorry but this guy has got to go. He’s totally useless IMO. I’ve seen enough now and if he does score that’ll be because somebody else has done all the work for him. Case in point is his one on one attempt on goal against Van Der Saar. How you can balloon the ball over in that situation spells it all out for me. He’s got no smarts, nor athleticism to deal with the situation. He has time and space. A true natural born striker buries that or at least, AT LEAST, forces the goalkeeper into a save.
He is quite simply, the worst athlete on the field. He’s the Manute Bol of Football.
De Rossi was and is a much better option, on paper and on the field, than Ambrosini, particularly regardingv the youth and creativity of the Dutch attack. Italy needed to contain, and counter. Ambrosini contributed to neither.
I agree with you though: Donadoni’s biggest mistake was in sleeping on his subs. He should’ve shuffled them at the break. Too little, too late.
Dear Marco. All the professionals agree on the fact that the RVN goal was correct. It is a very simple rule. Take your loss as a man. IF YOU CAN!!!
Big Hugs from Holland.
My team would be
Buffon (c)
Grosso, Ambrosini, Chiellini, Zambrotta
De Rossi, Gattuso
Pirlo
Quagliarella, Toni, De Natale
I don’t buy into the above comments that Camoranesi is an immense talent. Mauro gave another below average performance for the Azzurri. Pannucci too slow.
Agree with the above comment it would be good to see Aquilani get game time before the match against France.
Achmed: wrong, wrong, wrong. This was not a mistake from the linesman. Read rule 11 one more time.
Greetings from Holland
I fully agrree with the Italien way of playing soccer.
Remember RVN when he nearly strumbled over Gigi Buffon in order to get the ball. RVN is an honest and a sporting player. He did not let him fall. In the same case many Italien players would have fallen to the ground and have facked a penalty.
So in the long run it could have been 4-0 for Holland.
Even if the Netherlands lose vs Romania it’s not a problem, they could even lose for their own good, e.g. knocking both italy + france out of the tournament ( less competition in the final brackets ).
If they win vs France they are already in the quarter finals, so in that case there is no need at all to win vs Rom
So.
You better win vs Romania, a draw will kick you out of the tournament, that said it will probably cause a lot of pressure on that match, happily see you fail there.
Either way, better luck next tournament!
Marco, everybody cannot start. I have issues with Pirlo. He’s a great player to have when you’re 1-0 up. Not when you’re 2-0 down. He’s a lot like Riquelme – way too slow and ponderous. He has the talents to be a truly creative midfielder but spends half the game sitting in front of the centre backs. Granted maybe Donadoni (and Ancelotti) have given him that role, but I would love to see him sitting just behind the front two without a defensive care in the world. Especially with Gattuso AND Ambrosini in midfield, you need Pirlo to push up and stay up.
I left Camo out because the Romania game is going to be a gritty battle. I wanted to preserve the Roma midfield because they play with passion and determination. Camo will loose the ball way too much, get frustrated and dissappear from the game. I don’t see him doing well in that type of game.
Well the Ref must have been half-african cuz I guess he agreed with me.
yes marco, pleas read up on the rules before you start swearing and talking nonsense.
UEFA has emphasised that the goal scored by Netherlands striker Ruud van Nistelrooy in last night’s UEFA EURO 2008™ match against Italy in Berne was valid, and that referee Peter Fröjdfeldt acted correctly in awarding it.
Not offside
UEFA General Secretary David Taylor was reacting to claims from some quarters that Van Nistelrooy was standing in an offside position when he scored the first of the Netherlands’ goals in their 3-0 win. “I would like to take the opportunity to explain and emphasise that the goal was correctly awarded by the referee team,” he said. “I think there’s a lack of understanding among the general football public, and I think it’s understandable because this was an unusual situation. The player was not offside, because, in addition to the Italian goalkeeper, there was another Italian player in front of the goalscorer. Even though that other Italian player at the time had actually fallen off the pitch, his position was still relevant for the purposes of the offside law.”
Still involved
The starting point, said Mr Taylor, is the Laws of the Game – Law 11 – which deal with offside, whereby a player is in an offside position if he is nearer to his opponents’ goalline than both the ball and the second-last opponent. “There need to be two defenders involved,” the UEFA General Secretary said. “If you think back to the situation, the first is the goalkeeper, and the second is the defender who, because of his momentum, actually had left the field of play. But this defender was still deemed to be part of the game. Therefore he is taken into consideration as one of the last two opponents. As a result, Ruud van Nistelrooy was not nearer to the opponents’ goal than the second-last defender and, therefore, could not be in an offside position.
Rare incident
“This is a widely-known interpretation of the offside law among referees that is not generally known by the wider football public,” he continued. “Incidents like this are very unusual – although I’m informed that there was an incident like this about a month ago in a Swiss Super League match between FC Sion and FC Basel 1893. [It was] initially suggested that this [goal] was a mistake by the referee in terms of the offside law – the commentator later apologised publicly, as he didn’t realise that this was the correct application of the law.”
Law applied
Mr Taylor concluded: “So let’s be clear – the referees’ team applied the law in the correct manner. If we did not have this interpretation of the player being off the pitch then what could happen is that the defending team could use the tactic of stepping off the pitch deliberately to play players offside, and that clearly is unacceptable. The most simple and practical interpretation of the law in this instance is the one that is adopted by referees throughout the world – that is that unless you have permission from the referee to be off the pitch, you are deemed to be on it and deemed to be part of the game. That is why the Italian defender, even though his momentum had taken him off the pitch, was still deemed to be part of the game, and therefore the attacking player put the ball into the net, and it was a valid goal. The law in this place was applied absolutely correctly.”
the dutch have always had a high standard of playing but have had bad luck many times and now that they played well people should acknowledge their skills
go go netherlands and get that cup
I agree with your defense of Barzagli-Matrix and Ambrosini-Gattuso, but now he needs to swallow his pride and change it up. Chiellini must play, and Barzagli is too weak of a defender. Chiellini-Panucci in the center. Nothing fantastic, Giorgio’s got the pace, Panucci has the positioning.
I find that the first really does not mater much in this game. The dutch out played the Italians for the majority of the game. The basic principle in any sport is to out-play,out-chance,and out-score your opponent.The dutch excelled at this in all facets of the game.The dutch were the better team plain and simple.
of course UEFA are going to back the goal. They can’t have controversy in their tournament by admitting that a ref got the call wrong but we can’t do anything about it, etc etc.
To be honest, everything happened so quickly that it would have been quite an ask for the ref to give offside.
Will, Pirlo can decide the game simply with a pinpoint pass behind the defense. Your analogy with Riquelme doesn’t hold because unlike the Argentinian, Pirlo plays much further back down the field, he’s not an offensive midfielder per say. “Spending half the time sitting in front of the center backs” as you say, is exactly where Pirlo is most productive: his skill is ball distribution, not speedy dribbling. Occasionally he’ll step up the field to support the attack, but you can’t expect him to play the same way say as… Francesco Totti.
As for Camoranesi, I still fail to see the logic in your argument. In a gritty battle, if you’re the better technical side your goal is to outplay your opponent, not drop back down to his level.
To be honest Alessio, the Panucci-Chiellini pairing never even crossed my mind. Perhaps I was having too much (blind) faith in Barzagli, but it seems more or less obvious now that without the “directing influence” that is Cannavaro, the Palemo center-back is just lost at sea.
All things considered, a Zambrotta-Panucci-Chiellini-Grosso backline is looking more attractive by the minute.
Guillermo, Mr. Taylor can back up his reffing staff as much as he wants, the linesman still got the decision wrong in my opinion. Now, everyone here can shout “only stupid people can’t change their mind”, but I’m not the only one who thinks so. As Ahmed said, UEFA have every interest at ruling out any potential controversies and given the choice, will always rule on the side of the officiating staff.
For the sake of indulging you, let’s go over Mr. Taylor’s quote again:
Point nº1: we all agree a player cannot intentionally leave the field in order to put an opponent offside. That would be too easy.
Point nº2: it was not Panucci’s momentum that had taken him off the pitch, it was Buffon crashing all over him and leaving Panucci injured. Thus, the player was not in control of his actions, did not intentionally leave the field (be it by his run, or his “momentum” carrying him over the line) and could not have promptly re-inserted himself in play on account of lying motionless on the ground.
Now, what I can (and will) agree on, is that the linesman interpreted Panucci’s actions a different way. In his mind, he was unable to determine whether Panucci had intentionally left the field to circumvent the offside rule, and applied the rule in its simplest terms. However, whether the linesman applied the rule in good faith or not, is irrelevant. He still made a mistake.
I’ll give you one more thing to consider: would everyone have been so quick to side with the validity of RVN’s goal, had Panucci been lying on the ground, bleeding profusely, and knocked out of his senses?
And no one (certainly not me) is denying that. Neither am I making excuses that the entirety of Holland’s victory was based on controversy. The Dutch fully deserved their win and to put it simply, Italy played like sh**. However we can praise Marco Van Basten’s team all we want, questions about the validity of the first goal still remain.
Once again, dear achmed,
The game is not plaied by YOUR ruleS. tO BAD, SO SAD. Is it so difficult to understand the (so f…..g) easy understanding, simple, for all the …………….IQ and minor………….. duhhhuyhh, nice people:
OK. Offside???????????????
How low can you go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Thank you for your contribution to the discussion Ron.
DUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I have to disagree.. Luca Toni created goals for Klose and Ribery as well as scored them. He needs service and when he is stranded 50 yards from goal without service because Ambrosini and Gatusso were invisible how is that his fault?
Ambrosini in the center of defense? Dear Lord.. Switch Grosso and Zambrotta as well..
hahaha.. 4 full backs.. This is what the Italian national team has come to?
hahahaha
You can’t really consider Chiellini a wing-back anymore Bashar. He’s played center-back with Juve for over a year now. And Panucci played center-back for Roma many times over this season, doing very well.