The DOWNFALL of the Azzurri (Why Italy SUCKED at Euro 2024!)

Defending champions Italy faced early elimination from Euro 2024 and to say that they exited with dignity would be putting it kindly. Comfortably beaten 2-0 by Switzerland in the round of 16, the Azzurri failed to even mount a late fight, succumbing to their third winless game of the tournament.

To many, Italy's Euro 2024 campaign was one of their worst performances at a major tournament in a long time–a far cry from the team that triumphed at Euro 2021 amid a remarkable 37-game unbeaten run. Coupled with Italy’s prior failures to qualify for consecutive World Cups, it leaves current manager Luciano Spaletti with difficult problems to solve.

So, what exactly went wrong for the Azzurri this time? Here’s why Italy were shockingly bad at Euro 2024.

#euro2024 #italia #italy

0:00 - Italy's Euro 2024 Failure
0:46 - Spalletti Disasterclass
5:41 - Low Quality of Players
9:29 - Poor Team Selection
11:12 - Lack of Preparation
12:38 - Outro

*All footage used in the video is for contextual purposes and in no way intended to infringe on intellectual property.
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[FrontPageFootball]

Which of those mentioned in the video is Italy’s biggest failure? 🇮🇹👇🏻

A. Spalletti Tactics
B: Lack of Player Quality
C: Poor Team Selection
D: Lack of Preparation

[delbroox]

Small correction, it wasn't one of the worst Italy performances, it was THE worst Italy performance ever. Never saw such as scared, unorganised, lost Italian football team. Sad sad state.

[JP-vjfp]

Italy have won 2 Euros, not 3. Also, for most of Italy’s football history the majority of the national team players ply their trade in the Italian league. In 2006 every player played in the Serie A. They won the world cup. I don’t think it’s necessary for Italians to go abroad in order to “level up”. On the contrary, it’s Italian coaches and club presidents who need to have the balls (pun intended) to let young Italians play in the Serie A and stop waiting for them to be approaching 30 before they are considered mature enough.

One more thing, on the topic of coaches. This is something that many ex-managers and players have already stated, and that is that today all across the world but especially evident in Italy, so many youth coaches want to follow the Guardiola model. They want to develop “complex” styles of play which the players must adhere to and leave THEIR mark in order to advance THEIR career, rather than teaching the fundamental skills to the youth and letting them develop and express their creative skills.

[humptydumpty]

If he is going to call Di Lorenzo his son and select Cristante again, he needs to be replaced. His team selection was bizarre. I'm beginning to think that he is not suitable to be a CT, more suited to club football.

[riccardoc]

Soalletti (and Gravina) should have the dignity to resign. The fact that they didnt underlines the true problem of the italian football debacle: arrogance and an incapacity for true and needed radical changes.

[masymd]

This Italian team seemed to lack two things: 1. cooperation and 2. heart. The players individually seem good enough on their own, with a few exceptions.

The latter item was very evident in their match against Switzerland. They looked absolutely disinterested.

[paolomarega]

In my opinion, Italy's downfall was a mixture of bad coaching and selection, with a touch of bad luck.

Mancini's Italy of 2021 was a well-crafted machine, with a good balance of offense and defense, slightly better in the second. Mancini, trying to bring the best features of his players up, went for a 4-3-3: Donnarumma as a goalie, Bonucci and Chiellini as centre backs, Di Lorenzo on the right and Spinazzola on the left, Jorginho as playmaker, followes by Barella and Locatelli/Pessina in the middle, with Berardi or Chiesa as rifht wing, Immobile as the main striker and Insigne on the left. Every single player of this team played in the same position for both the national team and their clubs: they perfectly knew what they need to do and how to do it.

Spalletti had to face many problem from the beginning. Most of the previous team players were too old (Bonucci), retired (Chiellini), out of shape (Insigne and Immobile) or injured (Berardi). Also, Tonali's absence was a very heavy blow, since he would have been clearly a starter and would have added a lot of balance in the transition phase between attack and defense.
Unlike Mancini, who doesn't have a standard line-up, Spalletti always uses a 4-2-3-1 and that was a problem: most of Italy top defenders (Bastoni, Dimarco, Mancini, Buongiorno, Gatti just to name a few) right now play with a back 3 sistem with their clubs and are not familiar with the tactics of a back 4 formation. Forcing them into his module was a mistake. Also, Italy's best wingers were kinda avarage (I mean, they're not bad by any means, it just happens we had better ones last time), yet he insisted on having them, which leads us to the last problem: both Retegui and Scamacca used to have a partner striker in their clubs (Gudmunson and Lookman, both very skilled in dribbling) and team up in order to score. With a couple of wingers, they were completely uneffective.
Spalletti, imo, should have adopted a 3-5-2 solution: defenders would have fit better, both strikers would have a partner and the wingers could be swapped forna couple of offensive fullbacks, like Dimarco, Spinazzola or Bellanova.

Lastly, we should also consider that Mancini's strongest point was the midfield: most of Italy's goal in the Euro 2021 came directly from a midfielder or were assisted by one, with wingers having a pivotal role in bringing the team forward. Immobile was more a decoy than an effective striker.
Spalletti's Italy lacked immensely in build-up and struggled to reach the strikers (0 goals by Scamacca and Retegui in 4 matches). Jorginho was not the same playmaker and, frankly, I cannot understand why he was called. Pellegrini and Fagioli were awful. Barella did kinda well though, still not enough. In general, they lacked creativity.
Players like Bonaventura, Orsolini, Colpani or Pessina, very goal-oriented, would have solved the problem, but they were left out.

It must be said that Italian footballers right now are not top notch, with a couple of exceptions. Still, I personally think that, with just a couple of corrections, our selection could have done better. Maybe not winning back to back the tournament, but at least putting up a decent fight for the semis. Feels like they didn't even wanna try. And that is very sad.

[aguido]

The biggest issue Calafiori should have been starting at 18 at one of the Serie A clubs instead of being sent to Switzerland. Now he will go to England where defense goes to die. The youth level is loaded with world class talent, but it lies on the big clubs to keep Italian kids on their roster and if they loan them loan them to a serie A team that will finish middle bottom of table.
Spaletti was brutal with his selections and lineups. After the albania game he should have thought more pragmatic but instead they were 11 individuals running around a pitch with no cohesive approach. DiLorenzo being kept out there was the worst coaching, in 94 I watched Sacchi sub off Robby Baggio. If il contino divino can be subbed i think Di Lorenzo could have been subbed lol. No excuses from him now he has time and a big pool of talent to figure out 2026!

[zetazeta]

The honest gist of it is that in Italian clubs they prefer foreigners that are experienced at the club level than betting on their youth. ALSO it's cheaper for them to bring youth players from other countries and building them up to then sell them than to develop actual talent. It is OUTRAGEOUS that italian teams barely have italians in their squads. AND THEY ARE OK WITH IT. Look at Milan, Napoli, Juventus or basically any team like Torino and Atalanta. Not even their "primavera" have Italinas. How do you expect to select Italians for a national team when there are none?. They better start developing and betting on local talent again, or they will be like this for a long time. Sacchi has been very adamant about this for the last decade.

[jcg]

This was the worst Italian team I've seen in my lifetime which I began watching regularly in the 1982 World Cup. Even though other Italian teams had some bad failures, most of that failure came from an inability to score even when controlling a game, losses in Penalty Kick shootouts, bad luck, bad groups, etc. I have never seen them be this outclassed. They definitively looked inferior to second tier squads like Switzerland and Croatia. Again, I've seen them lose to countries like this many times but never in a manner in which they looked decidedly inferior the way that they did in this tournament (after the first game). You never got the feeling that they were better than a typical third tier team.

[dicoquellochevoglio]

As an Italian, I can confirm.

But we also have to talk about the low quality of Italian "scuole calcio" (places where Italian kids and boys play football and develop) which are unable to form adequate footballers and which are also very costly.

Managers of youth teams from all around Italy prefer deploying more physical players so they can win youth tournaments, but likewise, they sacrify the development of new footballers.

[TheUrbanNinja]

look at clubs like Udinese...11 foreigners....theres your main reason..

[Lazlum]

Even Joe Biden can dribble past Di Lorenzo

Italy has historically the best(or of the best) defense in the World and this squad had the worst defense in Italian history
BY FAR

[cb]

Wouldn't surprise me if they struggle to qualify for next world cup & yet somehow end up winning the world cup

[EliasRoy]

Please continue making these bangers 🙏

[FuoridiTesla]

If there's one thing that has been similar in ALL italy's competitions run (even the shittiest ones, like 2010 WC or 2014 WC) is the heart and the passion mixed with toughness our italian players has played with. This is the first time in my life, after also rewatching games of oldest WC or EC, I've seen a bunch of guys just givin up. The majority of the issues come from Spalletti's bad recruiting and lack of putting players in their natural positions; but the cause fo this disaster is also associated to players clearly not wanting the win neither battling for their nation - not all of them, but some people like Scamacca casually walking around the field and couple of days later via IG story on Ibiza doing party and laughing like nothing happened. Serie A managers NEED to develop italian players within their clubs and not relying on foreign players, and players NEED to calm down their ego and start thinking that their 5-6-7 mln € salary is neither granted nor free from duties. Meanwhile, Spalletti has to think about what the actual fucking scheme he wanna run, because he's been horrible to see on the sideline with that attitude and then hearing him on press conference saying a lot of fancy words to hide his total failure in all of aspect of coaching - recruiting, positioning, managing ecc ecc.

[frankyyy]

You were spot on now Im Praying we qualify for the world cup give these young Italians playing time

[eazyez]

Beside a lack of international-level players (we've got some) the real issue was the tactics. Spalletti choose players who played a 352 or 3 center back defense and put them out of role in 433. He was not able to read the characteristics of players, and used them like in fut.

[Publicistvideos]

Losing 3-0 to Argentina in La finalissima was foreshadowing

[DonKnight-qitu]

To be honest, Italy hasn't just sucked at Euro 24. They have also sucked at the last 3 World Cups and everything in between.