Italy’s problem with creativity must be overcome
A possible Italy line-up for the opening game
No-one is talking about Italy ahead of this tournament, despite them being the holders, despite them breezing through qualification, despite them having received the most favourable draw of any side.
The pessimism stems from the lack of quality, both in their playing squad as a whole, and from the performances over the past four years. Star names like Gianluca Zambrotta, Fabio Cannavaro, Rino Gattuso and Andrea Pirlo are still around and capable of big performances, but all are nowhere near the players they were four years ago.
For Italy to have a good tournament, they need others to step up. The key players are the likes of Daniele de Rossi, Giorgio Chiellini, and Alberto Gilardino – top class Serie A players for many years, and ones who must now perform on the world stage for the Azzurri.
Marcello Lippi, the 2006 winner, has returned as manager after Roberto Donadoni’s poor Euro 2008. He has been criticized for having too much faith in his favourites, and a reluctance to bring in some promising younger players. That said, recently he has brought in fresh blood to freshen up the squad – he now needs to place one or two of them into the first team.
Shape of the team
In terms of formation, Lippi is completely unpredictable. He has tried various shapes – 4-2-3-1, 4-3-3, 4-4-2, 3-4-1-2 and 4-3-2-1 – and has promised tactical flexibility throughout the tournament. That’s to be expected – Italy won the World Cup in 2006 by playing different systems in different games, and will face three very different styles of football in the group stage.
The most likely formation seems to be a 4-2-3-1 / 4-3-3 shape, that would have featured Andrea Pirlo playing further forward than he’s done for the past eight seasons, returning to something approaching a trequartista role. Pirlo looks unlikely to be fit for the opening two games, and so his place may go to Riccardo Montolivo, a hugely talented playmaker who captains Fiorentina, and who deserves an opportunity for the national side.
The two deeper midfielders will probably be de Rossi and Angelo Palombo, the Sampdoria midfield general who is unquestionably in better form than Gatusso (who admittedly remains one of Lippi’s favourites).
Defence
At the back, the Juventus trio of Gianluigi Buffon in goal with Chiellini and Cannavaro ahead should have little problems in the opening three games, although Cannavaro has looked very shaky at points over the past year, particularly when playing against pace – expect Italy to play a deep defensive line to compensate.
A switch to three at the back could make sense against sides playing two out-and-out strikers, which would mean turning to either Leonardo Bonucci or Salvatore Bocchetti, who have just seven caps between them. The full-backs would push on to become wing-backs with little problem.
If Italy play a tridente, they will probably be spread across the pitch with two wide forwards, rather than a trequartista behind two strikers, as is traditional
One full-back will be Gianluca Zambrotta, and his position will be decided according to whether Lippi prefers Domenico Criscito, a left-back, or Christian Maggio, a right-back. Both have played further forward in wide midfield positions for the majority of the past year at club level, and offer a great attacking threat.
Forwards
Which full-back plays might depend on the forward three, because Lippi often fields a striker in one of the wide roles. It’s often Vincenzo Iaquinta on the right – he is more of a central striker but works hard on the wing and provides a direct goal threat, especially in the air. On the opposite side will be Antonio di Natale, a player more comfortable in a wide position, and coming off a brilliant season where he finished Serie A top goalscorer in a poor Udinese side.
The central striker should be Alberto Gilardino, a marvellous player who offers excellent movement, particularly with darting runs towards the near post, and has recently become the natural heir to Pippo Inzaghi by being involved in running battles with the linesman. Giampaolo Pazzini is an alternative, playing more of a targetman role.
In theory, this Italian side works better than it actually has done on the pitch, however, and the friendly performances haven’t been particularly encouraging. Fabio Quagliarella’s goal against Switzerland may help his cause – he is more suited to the wide-right position than Iaquinta. A tridente of di Natale-Gilardino-Quagliarella looks best on paper, with two genuine wide forwards either side of a poacher with good movement, but this has never been tried by Lippi.
Two players who deserve a starting spot – Riccardo Montolivo and Fabio Quagliarella – linked up for Italy’s (slightly strange) goal against Switzerland last week
What Italy really lack is a trequartista, being without Francesco Totti for the first time since the World Cup of 1998. None of the forwards are deep-lying ones who could play that role, and so it might be up to Pirlo and/or Montolivo to play further forward – otherwise Italy could struggle for creativity in the final third.
Alternatively, Lippi will use different forwards to perform different roles. In the World Cup four years ago he took six forwards – Totti, Gilardino, Iaquinta, Luca Toni, Alessandro del Piero and Pippo Inzaghi – and incredibly, all of them scored at one point or another, as all were needed at separate times. That might be the case again, but then Lippi has less of a variety in attacking roles this time. Simone Pepe of Udinese could offer natural width as substitute.
Conclusion
Italy should be able to waltz through the group stage. In the quarter-finals, they’ll probably come up against Spain, a side they managed to stifle two years ago at the same stage. A good defensive display can be expected despite Cannavaro’s advancing years.
Creativity is the main worry with no Totti and no Pirlo (for the opening games), and how Lippi gets around that problem might hold the key to their performance. With a tactician like Lippi they could be more successful than people expect, although he has fewer options than four years ago.
Italy’s problem with creativity must be overcome
The missing trequartista is Italy’s biggest problem. In the second half of the game against Mexico he moved Iaquinta into a more central role behind Gilardino who will always play as the prima punta. He has also tried pushing Marchisio further up the pitch. Pirlo played further up the pitch in qualifying as well so he has shuffled the pack a fair bit with his attacking midfielder, but he is still struggling to find a solution.
The biggest problem that this will present is the space between midfield and attack is huge, the attackers are left isolated and the opposition have plenty of space to keep hold of the ball in. Especially because the aging defence like to sit very deep, almost on the 18 yard line!
In the past weeks Lippi has always tried Marchisio as a trequartista,keeping Pirlo back in the duo of holding midfielders toghether with De rossi.Here in italy nobody knows if that’s a viable option,since Marchisio this season has always played in a midfield of three players,or wide left in a 4 man one.It appears that Lippi wants to employ him in a similar way of what Perrotta used to play.
Also since Camoranesi got injured and it’s unknown whethever he could heal in time,Lippi has brought with the group Cossu also,who is the only real trequartista in the entire 23,but has limited experience in such competitions,so it’s no really viable either.
The titular formation seemed to be (before Pirlo’s injury) a 4-2-3-1, with Chiellini deployed as a left back (a role he used to play in 3 years ago) but i think that Lippi himself quickly changed his mind bringin him back in the central positions of the defence,Cannavaro,Bonucci,Maggio,Pirlo,De rossi,Di Natale,Marchisio,Iaquinta and Gilardino.
The other big issue with Lippi is that he hasn’t brought with him a wild card,such as Cassano or Balotelli,and god knows if we needed one of them.
In the end to me the 3 main issues with Italy this year are:
-Some players are deployed in roles where they are not used to play
-Lack of a wild card
-Lack of proper condition.Many players are too old to play so many games in a so short amount of time;others are really tired (like De rossi,you can see it from the last games of Roma,or even from the two friendlies).Lippi said that this is to be related to the fact that they trained over 2,000 mt,and that everyone will recover in time,but i’m not so sure about that
Sorry for my english
Your english is fine.
However, you say too many players are out of position. According to the diagram, isn’t Iaquinta the only player out of position?
I too think Lippi made a mistake not picking one crazy but brilliant player and using him off the bench as a spark. You can get by with one of Cassano or Balotelli acting up as long as the rest of the team is sane.
From a non-Serie A watcher who frequently sees Italian teams in the Champions League and Europa/Uefa Cup, the relative youth of the central midfield is encouraging, since english teams seem to play at too fast a pace for the Pirlo/Gattuso/Ambrosini/Perotta group.
However, the use of Iaquinta out wide and the inclusions of Cannavaro, Zambrotta and whichever attacking fullback is chosen in the back seem to suggest wide players could really terrorize Italy.
Well, the problem is that i think we’ll see rarely the exact formation pictured in the diagram.Lippi so far has tried out of role the following players:
-Marchisio,as explained above
-Chiellini,if he intends to use him as a left back
-Criscito and Maggio,they are not proper full-backs.Both of them are almost always used in 3-4-3 or 3-5-2 formations in theirs club teams (Genoa and Napoli).When they were deployed deeper as fullbacks they rarely did a good job.
-Pirlo,if he plays more advanced as suggested by ZM.It’s been a long time since he played properly in a trequartista role and imho he no longer has the pace or stamina to play in such way
On top of that you have to consider that Montolivo still is unknown where he exactly plays confortably,Di Natale and Iaquinta play too far from the goal to pose any real danger and Gilardino is left alone as a consequence and the only real full back we have is Zambrotta…
Also i fear that using Cannavaro (as you mentioned) we will concede an awful lot of opportunities,as seen with Juventus all over this season…
seems to me like italy would be far better off with a back three themselves, with cannavaro in the middle to protect his lack of pace. that way you could give di natale license to work either flank, playing just off gilardino, leaving him less isolated, and still maintain 3 central midfielders.
only question mark would be chiellini on the left of a back three, would he be uncomfortable there? don’t think he wants to be out in wide areas. but other than that, every other player in the italy squad would seem to be happier in this system. even pepe could come on and play as a wide midfielder in a 3-4-3 if italy needed a goal.
not sure why you think Chiellini would be uncomfortable on the outside – as someone mentioned upthread, he used to play left back, though admittedly I’ve never seen him play there.
i think that the 3 man defence won’t work for 2 main reasons:
-the only one that has played consistently as a centre back in such disposition is Bocchetti;neither Chiellini,Cannavaro or Bonucci have played that way before (Zaccheroni this season tried with Juventus to use it but he quickly changed back to a 4 man defence)
-Many teams in the world cup use 1 or 3 man attack disposition
I would love to see Lippi at least give it a try against Paraguay,but i don’t think we’ll ever see that happening
As for Chiellini,he used to play as a full back in Fiorentina,but that was 4 years ago….since he went to Juventus he became a centre back,and now it’s our strongest one in our defence so i won’t try to move him back there leaving an inexperienced Bonucci or an old Cannavaro
Agree with most of that. Particularly that we’ll rarely see the formation in the diagram. There’s probably less than 25% chance we will, but it’s impossible to read Lippi at the moment…
The problem is that neither Palombo or Montolivo are sure starters. Gattuso could play, Camoranesi could play…
I think Camo should get a chance along with Montolivo and De Rossi in the middle, for as long as Pirlo is out at least. Also, I think Criscito on the left and Zembrotta on the right would work better for them. Still can’t believe Lippi didn’t take any of Cassano, Balotelli, and Rossi. I think Rossi or Cassano could have been drafted into their squad and enabled a classic italian 4312 formation like:
GK: Buffon
LB: Criscito
CB: Chiellini, Cannavaro
RB: Zambrotta
MF: De Rossi, Pirlo, Montolivo/Camoranesi
CF: Rossi/Cassano
ST: Gilardino, Di Natale/Iaquinta/Rossi
which I suppose they could still do if they put Camo, Pirlo, or Montolivo into the CF/AM slot behind the strikers…
This is the real shame, if we do see Gattuso playing then De Rossi and Marchisio (probably) will have to do lots of work creating chances which aren’t their most noted attributes.
Di Natale is going to be the star for Italy this WC. Pirlo will continue to be a key player.
I love this website. It is like the people previewing the teams are watching a completely different game than I am watching. You guys have opened up my eyes however I still don’t know many things. For instance How do I learn what to look for on the pitch? What do I read or do to understand the tactics well? How can I understand football better in general. I am just in awe of the guys who write and respond here. I am sorry if I am being a nuisance but are there any other websites I can read to verse myself more on the tactical aspects of the game. I have found out the Jonathan Wilson’s book the Inverted Pyramid is really good but are there other websites that can help me as well.
I usually don’t write on any websites but your world cup team previews have been a revelation to me and I just had to ask.Thank you and keep up the good work.
I don’t write on this site, but I do a bit of tactical analysis myself and I think it’s really important to get yourself familiar with the players before you watch a game so you’re not struggling to know which player’s which whilst simultaneously trying to get a grasp of the tactical systems on display.
The thing with tactics is that formations are usually a lot more fluid than diagrams suggest, so try and assess the movement of individual players within the wider system. You can usually get a pretty good idea of the general shape of a team from your TV (although watching the game live in the stadium makes things easier) and then start to ask yourself a few questions. How often are the full-backs getting forward? Is one of the midfielders anchoring to allow the other(s) to adopt more advanced positions? Is one striker deeper than the other? By going through that kind of process you start to build up a decent picture of not only the basic shape of the team, but also the orders the individual players might have been given by the coach.
It takes a bit of practice, but after a while you’ll start to spot things automatically and it all becomes a bit clearer. Good luck.
This is good advice. Watching games live in stadium helps tremendously because you can observe ones player roles more closely and won’t be relying on camera angles given which makes watching movement of certain areas often a lot harder.
But obviously tickets are expensive, so the next best thing really is TV.
So from one fan of the game to another: Try to apply this method anyway – set out to observe a certain player – or maybe if thats too boring, focus on the one aspect of the game only. E.g. to observe the left full-back in a team with a 4-2-3-1 watch the left side only, see how the left full back and left winger work together. See how left defensive midfielder interacts with those two.
And more importantly, closely observe what their respective opposition players do to try to exploit the positioning.
If you tape the game, you will be able review a certain thing again that was hard to follow.
Now best thing would be not to watch it alone but watch together with a friend who is also interested. Make a game out of it, have him watch the opposition player mainly, you watch the defender. And then you guys can talk about what you think they did well, what they didn’t. Try to figure out why they made decisions and how that worked out for them. 90 minutes is pretty long, so for the start maybe just do it for part of the game, then switch roles or focus on something else if its too boring.
If you start at the small scale like this, and go over different areas this will teach you a lot and you will help you apply it to large scale.
adam wells’ ‘football and chess’ is good – clearly written with diagrams, it’s got me into chess. there’s also a bibliography on this website
Have just bought that book actually, won’t be reading it for a good month though…
Can’t think why
Italy have huge problems in defense. They were chasing shadows against Mexico. Their wide attackers don’t track back to help the fullbacks who are too slow anyway. Criscito gave the ball away in dangerous areas, is he really a better option than Grosso ? I didnt see him deliver one decent cross.
I feel sorry for De Rossi who has to play the role of 3 players,covering for the weaknesses of others. If Lippi manages to succeed with this team, I will bow to him.
As many on here noted, I think the problem with this Italy squad is the imbalance of functionality and creativity. Lippi has come out and said that the team should look like Inter of this year, showing rigidity and discipline throughout the squad. However, the missing element is an Italian Sneijder. In 2006, they had options there: Totti, Del Piero, a 26 year old Pirlo; players capable of injecting that bit of “fantasia” into the squad. This year, that spark doesn’t seem to be too apparent. Pirlo still can bring some of the magic, although not like in 2006. Additionally, he won’t be available until at least the third match. Montolivo, while seemingly capable, is a relatively unknown quantity on the national level.
Secondly, I think Lippi is overthinking the squad a bit as well. In the Mexico friendly, he moved Marchisio to the “trequartista” role, with Pirlo sitting as one of the back 2 in front of the defense. To me, that presents an issue defensively, as Pirlo is a bit of a liability on the defensive end. If you recall, Pirlo was flanked by Ambrosini & Gattuso in Ancelotti’s Christmas Tree formations) – I believe this will present more of an issue on the right side of the defense for Italy, with both Zambrotta (a shell of his former self) & Iaquinta the likely starters there. As a result, I think it will wear down an already tired De Rossi. The most obvious solution would be to switch Marchisio & Pirlo/Montolivo, if only to lighten the burden on Zambrotta (or Maggio, if he gets some playing time).
Lastly, to somewhat reiterate my point about the lack of creativity, the “fantasista” role has been given to Antonio Di Natale (He will be wearing the famed “#10″ of Totti & Baggio). While there is no denying Di Natale’s accomplishments in Serie A, (he has been a consistent threat for a number of years on a relatively mediocre Udinese squad) he is another unproven commodity on the national level. His only matches of note have occurred against Cyprus in qualifying. The question is, will he be able to translate his performances in Italy to performances in South Africa? As a fan, I sure hope so. Or at the very least, maybe he can coax Spain or another potential opponent in the knock-outs to come to some sort of kit swap agreement with the Mediterranean island nation.
I am quite concerned about our chances this time around.
I do worry whether Lippi actually knows what he’s doing, and also the fact that the spine of the team (Buffon, Cannavaro, Pirlo, Gilardino) is either injured or coming off a poor season. Zambrotta is also a weak link defensively, Italy’s Glen Johnson if you will, and I fear for our lack of creativity.
I would like to see Italy play a pretty straightforward 4-4-2, a la 2006 final, with Buffon / Maggio, Cannavaro, Chiellini, Zambrotta / Camoranesi (if fit), Montolivo, De Rossi, Marchisio (in a Perrotta role) / Gilardino and Di Natale. I don’t think Lippi will do that though.
I don’t think Lippi seems to be getting the best out of Di Natale – he plays too far out wide at the moment.
I think a dignified quarter-final exit against Spain might be the best we can hope for… although I do have nightmares of a group stage exit, which I don’t think is as far-fetched as people think.
To me it seems like madness to move a player who for the last 8 years has been playing and defining a position as a deep lying playmaker forward into the trequarista role where he did not set the world alight. Add to this the fact that he is 31 and I don’t understand why Lippi is doing this.
Surely a better tactic would be to have your best players in their best positions with Pirlo deep and a younger more agile player ahead doing all of the running and linking the defence to attack. It is a pity that Cassano was excluded because he would be the ideal replacement for Totti.
The overarching question is whether it makes a difference that Totti is no longer there. Yes he was a link between defence and attack, but he never really produced on the international level (god knows why). Surely another player, even if they are young, could step in and fill his shoes to an extent.
Overall, I dont give Italy much hope, although if there is one team other than Brazil who could tame a rampant Spanish side it is the Italians.
I think Pirlo being out could be a blessing, hear me out.
The midfield basically has to be tailor made for Pirlo at this stage, because he plays such a unique role. Pirlo playing will either stifle De Rossi into a totally destructive role to cover for him, or force a purely destructive player like Gattuso into the lineup.
With Palombo being much more assured defensively and possesing most of the passing of Pirlo from deep, it allows De Rossi to be the more complete player he is, plus adding one of Marchiso or Montolivo. So the overall quality of the midfield is improved both offensively because nobody is having to be totally destructive, and defensively because nobody is a passenger. A 4-2-3-1 with Quagliarella behind the striker would also be a good option.
Fantastic article(as usual)! Now that you’ve done Italy, only four more countries to analze left: nigeria, algeria, usa, and serbia! Incredible, you’re doing like 6 articles a day, and each article is just brilliant. How in the world ARE you able to find the time to constantly write these? ZM, you’re blog is the best football website I have ever seen, thank you for vastly increasing my football knowledge!
About creativity, which I have a feeling at least in the traditional meaning of the word, is something Lippi finds overrated.
I think the creativity on this team as is not uncommon with Lippi, a man who got rid of a 28 year old Roberto Baggio to in fact improve the team, will be in the tactics, mainly passing and running patterns where very little is not practiced and planned
To start of with something of a sidetrack, when thinking about the differences between Lippi and Capello, what Capello I feel has mostly done on the teams he has coached is organize the team very rigid defensively. Everyone will have a responsibility there that they’ll have to live up to and are then challenged in a way (you could say) to attack (be creative) under tough defensive discipline.
In some ways really with a lot of freedom with the ball, but under the condition that the defensive duties has to be fulfilled and not compromised.
Hey mr. extremely talented player (who have surrounded Capello at his clubs right from the start) do as much attacking as you can manage, be my guest, feel free to do what you want with your great talent, but live up to my defensive guidelines while doing it or you are out.
That’s my impression of the (perhaps) underlying Capello message and it has proved very effective of course at creating balanced teams.
With Lippi on the other hand there isn’t much freedom for the players on the attacking front and I guess depending on how things are going people can see that as more ambitious, perhaps smarter even, or as we’re hearing now in the usual negative pre-World Cup environment of Azurri hysteria, restricting to a point where its damaging the attacking play.
With Lippi passes and movement from each player is very much coached and coordinated with little left to chance.
“Computer-football that I hope isn’t the future” I remember Leverkusen coach Topmöller calling it after a 4-0 defeat, but in a way isn’t it just the ultimate consequence of believing a coach, believing in his own ability to read and analyze the game over his players? What is clear though is that just like with Capello’s different approach, it’s one that has rarely not been successful.
Personally I think it’s something beautiful to watch and when really working, the most beautiful to watch actually.
Even in games when its not really, like in the recent friendly against Switzerland, you still see those glimpses, the tactical attacking perfection once the game is read. And there are constant examples of this in Lippi’s career. Most famously I guess the World Cup semi-final against Germany four years ago.
But against Switzerland, for an example in the second half where time and time again (Lippi said he counted 10) in what in real time is only a few seconds, Montolivo gets the ball in deep central midfield and perfectly coordinated as soon as that happens Quagliarella from his left-forward spot in the 3 man attack (vs a back four) will move central drawing the opposing left-back Ziegler with him, WHILE simultaneously Italy right back Christian Maggio quickly has already begun his run forward into the space that’s now been opened up, immediately Montolivo finds him with a direct laser pass worthy of Pirlo, and just like that a dangerous situation has been CREATED.
Which then brings us back to the main issue, apologies for any sidetracking, not made by what you would usually call (brilliant) creativity.
From the likes of Lippi rejects, Roberto Baggio or Cassano (on that front it’s not like Italy can compete with a number of different nations currently anyway so trying to wouldn’t even make sense), but with movement and passing – instructed and coached.
Yeah you wish the team was more talented. Obviously. But more than ever what we have is a Lippi-team that has to find its edge tactically through player (pieces if you will…) movement, passing and functionality in many different positions on the field.
If tactics alone can win you trophies, fine. But reality is WC is a very high level competition, and more often than not, you need that bit of spark to win games.
Even in games that tactics played a large part, say, the Inter 3 – 1 Barca game in San Siro, Inter would not have accomplished it without clinical finishing of Milito, intelligent passing of Sneijder, and phenomenal defending abilities of the whole Inter team. You cannot win trophies by having a master tactician alone, you need a squad capable of carrying out the tasks.
This is exactly where Italy fails miserably. Their traditionally top class backline is no longer reliable because of Cannavaro and Zambrotta’s poor form. Pirlo played his worst season ever at AC Milan and is now injured. Their first choice striker, Gilardino, is good in Serie A but not a productive one at the international level – 1 goal at WC 06, none in Euro 08. Italy simply don’t have a good squad to compete with other top teams. It is quite evident when you watch their friendlies. The players look slow, the passing is predictable, and at times simply look out of ideas.
These problems could have been lessened if Lippi picked a better squad, but now he is stuck with what he chose.
If your assessment of Lippi is accurate, then it should be little surprise that he improvise a box-to-box player (Marchisio) as a trequartista.
With all due respect ,
But the guy who wrote this doesn’t know a thing about Italian football ..
There are so many mistakes in this article , this is one of them :
without Francesco Totti for the first time since the World Cup of 1998.
Totti didn’t play in 98 !! .. There was Del Piero & Baggio .
Also , everyone has seen how Lippi said he will play Marchisio & this guy here favours Palombo & Montolivo over him .. This is really a shame that a writer on this site doesn’t know these basic things .
I know more about Italian football than I do about any other league/nationality, to be fair.
“”Without Francesco Totti for the first time since the World Cup of 1998.” Totti didn’t play in 98!”
Precisely, that’s exactly why it’s the first time they’re without him since the World Cup of 1998.
Firstly, “Without Totti for the first time since 1998″ is acccurate since, as you noted, Totti wasn’t on the team in 1998.
Secondly, ZM has noted that this particular lineup probably won’t be the one fielded. Perhaps it would have been better to show Marchisio instead of Palombo (swapping positions with Montolivo), but I would think that Montolivo has the best chance on the team to fill the Pirlo role until his return.
Lastly, Lippi has also made it known that there will be no 1st and 2nd lineup, so I don’t think this guess is too far-fetched at all. However, as I noted above, I think it would be a little more accurate with the subtitution of Marchisio for Palombo.
Well, we will have to wait and see who Lippi favours. But certainly he suggested last week that Marchisio might play in that role. (I only know this because I was casting about for some Fantasy League players.)
I don’t expect much from Italy this time round.
Re:”Breezing through Qualification” The only two even half hard games they had were against a lacklusture Ireland and they failed miserably…..
P10 W7 D3 L0 is pretty breezy.
That’s exactly what it means to say they will be without Totti for the first time since ‘98. Calm down, fella.
What I don’t understand is how does Iaquinta keep playing on the right wing when he has really poor ball control? He said that he is not being played in position but he can’t complain since Lippi might not play him of he said something.
Cannavaro is the weak link in defense and the whole defense line will rely on Chiello. Zambrotta should be benched for Maggio and Criscito on both flanks
I think the reason Lippi plays Iaquinta at right wing is because he is very hard-working, will run at the left-back for the full 90 minutes and also do his fair share of tracking back.
He won’t really provide many crosses but he can definitely be a handful – worked brilliantly in extra time against Lahm 4 years ago, as he really took him on and won a few corners in the process.
I wouldn’t start him, personally, but he can be an impact sub.
Iaquinta is not a traditional winger (short, quick, skilful), but then again Italy don’t really do wingers – last one who really made an impact in the national team was Donadoni 20 years ago. Even Camoranesi is somewhat atypical and is happy to play a more central role. He takes players on but isn’t the quickest.
to be fair to cannavaro, his performances for the national team are always better than his club level performances. I think he will rise to the occasion when need be. Iaquinta is useless on the wing and better as a in the box striker or right behind the 1st striker. Better to put camo or Pepe on the right side
Strange that Lippi should choose Marchisio (who is a box-to-box player) in the hole for 4-2-3-1 in recent friendlies.
Lippi should have atleast picked up Aquilani. Yes he had been injured and out of the team for a while now but he showed his class in the last few games of the season and is match fit and had been playing for Lippi when he was fit. You could argue that montolivo and aquilani are similar players but aquilani can play further up the pitch to much more effect.
Seriously? There’s no way Aquilani is worth the gamble, he did OK towards the end of the season, but nothing more. With Pirlo injured, you dont want another crock as his backup.
He’s be totally fine there. He broke through at Fiorentina as a left-back, charging up the left flank and swinging crosses in, so should be no problems