Slovakia 3-2 Italy: Vittek’s hold-up play the key to victory
The starting line-ups
A crushing defeat for Italy, but a deserved win for Slovakia, who had a more cohesive side and a clearer gameplan.
Marcello Lippi started with three central midfielders (Rino Gattuso was recalled) and one winger, in Simone Pepe. He generally played on the right, although switched to the left later in the first half. Gattuso seemed to occupy whichever side of midfield Pepe was not on. Antonio di Natale played off Vincenzo Iaquinta.
Slovakia played a basic 4-2-3-1 system, with Marek Hamsik the closest midfield runner to Robert Vittek. Juraj Kucka and Zdeno Strba patrolled the midfield, and with no direct Italian opponent, took it in turns to get forward.
The key to the game was how well the two strikers fared. Iaquinta won balls in the air, but struggled to hold the ball up. The central midfielders were always a long, long way from supporting him, and he generally only had di Natale to pass to. Pepe got forward but only in wide areas, and rarely offered a goal threat.
On the other hand, Vittek was superb. His movement was good – creating space for Hamsik’s late runs – whilst his hold-up play was even better. Slovakia generally looked to hit long balls towards him, and he shielded the ball from the centre-backs excellently, giving the three midfield runners time to connect with him. It was widely predicted that Fabio Cannavaro and Giorgio Chiellini would struggle in this competition against pace – so it’s ironic that their downfall came when they were up against a fairly technically-limited target man.
Italy poor
Italy were clueless in possession – the midfield trio simply didn’t work. Daniele de Rossi was playing very deep, just in front of the back four – Gattuso’s role was seemingly merely to provide running on the opposite side to Pepe, whilst Riccardo Montolivo was the furthest forward of the three, but still regularly 30-40 yards away from the two strikers.
The side seemed lopsided because of the different nature of Pepe and Gatusso. When Pepe was on the right, di Natale dropped slightly to the left to provide some balance, but when Pepe switched sides Italy were too asymmetrical. The full-backs may have been expected to provide support, and Zambrotta made a few typical surging runs, but both Miroslav Stoch and Erik Jendrisek did good defensive jobs, meaning Italy struggled to find anyone in space.
Slovakia’s first goal came from a misplaced pass from de Rossi, and it was a simple ball to Vittek, in space on the edge of the area, that opened up Italy’s defence. He was clearly getting the better of the defenders, and Italy were doing nothing to cut off the supply to him. There was little pressing because the midfield was so deep, and the Slovakia central midfielders had all the time in the world to look up and launch balls forward. Pressing high up the pitch can often be a good way to disrupt long ball football, as Chile showed against Switzerland.
Second half
For the second game running, Lippi made two half-time substitutions, and completely reshaped his team. He switched to a 4-2-3-1 that featured Pepe and Fabio Quagaliarella wide, and di Natale still just off Iaquinta. Italy then looked to play long balls to Iaquinta and get the other attackers close to him. The biggest compliment to Slovakia was that Lippi was essentially trying to recreate their tactics.
Slovakia, though, were more well-versed in this approach. The second goal came when Vittek got across Chiellini to turn in a low cross towards the near post.
The introduction of Andrea Pirlo seemed to lift Italy, and he played more thoughtful, incisive passes towards the wide forwards. Quagliarella’s impact was even more vital, because he was involved in everything that was good for Italy. His volley was blocked from on (just over?) the line by Martin Skrtel, his shot lead to the Di Natale rebound for the first goal, his tap-in was disallowed for a marginal offside, his sublime chip in the final minute for the second goal gave Italy hope. His omission until the second half of Italy’s final match at this tournament is baffling.
Slovakia had scored their crucial third with a goal wonderful for its simplicity – a perfectly-timed run by Kamil Kopunek met a throw over the defence to slot home. But the replays reveal the real creator of the goal – Vittek. He was the star yet again, as his move towards the ball dragged Italy’s central defenders out of position and created a huge gap for Kopunek to exploit.
Conclusion
It was a game that was tactical in a more narrow sense than many football games – it wasn’t won because one side’s tactics were deliberately geared to outmanoeuvre the other. It was simply that one side had a cohesive plan for attacking and players that understood their individual roles well, the other were poorly-organised and looked uncomfortable in their shape. The role of Vittek was more crucial than any other individual performance in the World Cup so far – he utterly dominated both centre-backs, creating opportunities for both him and others.
Slovakia will struggle to recreate this display, and could have been knocked out with a single goal in the other game, but their gameplan worked brilliantly. Get the ball up to Vittek, get him to hold it up, get runners supporting him. Italy were poor, but Slovakia were excellent.
Italy’s exit is frustrating. They brought nothing to the tournament in their opening two games, and then showed in the final 20 minutes here how dangerous they could have been. Fielding both di Natale and Quagliarella alongside a central striker has seemed the right option from the start of tournament, and Lippi will be regretting not trying that sooner.
It’s a sad end for Lippi, the hero of four years ago. His tactical and selection decisions were wrong throughout. The ‘reliance on his 2006 players’ line has been overstated (indeed, if he’d been able to select his spine of Buffon-Nesta-Pirlo-Totti-Toni for every game here, he probably would have been better off) but he does seem to have a curious disregard for form.
They may have been one goal away from qualification, but equally at no point in the competition were they leading a match.
Slovakia 3-2 Italy: Vittek’s hold-up play the key to victory
Deserved praise of Vittek, he has stood out as a very good striker over the group stage games. His first goal was good, his second, although helped by terrible Italian defending, was a decent goal.
Could be one who could benefit from the World Cup with a move to a bigger club.
Excellent review, which goes without saying. Good to see Vittek’s role highlighted ; wish this could be translated into Slovak for his detractors back home. There’ve been calls, before the tournament and during it, for him to be dropped.
Also from a Slovak point of view, the inclusion of Kucka was important. Against Paraguay, they had a midfield three of Strba, Hamsik, Kozak. Kozak is an elegant passer and has his uses in certain situations but is as lazy defensively as any international midfielder you’ll see, a factor which inhibited Hamsik and stopped him getting forward as often as he should be doing. Kucka, on the other hand, chose his moments to get forward and was always diligent defensively, thus Hamsik felt free to get up and support Vittek. Strba did what he always does, patrolling the area just in front of the defence and making the odd, fleeting foray into the Italy half. They might miss him in the last 16 (probably against the Dutch) as he picked up a second yellow today. Kopunek is the obvious replacement.
Definitely agree on Vittek but the right midfield combination was important too and will be vital to a decent effort in the last 16.
Guess there’ll be plenty of comments on Italy….
“indeed, if he’d been able to select his spine of Buffon-Nesta-Pirlo-Totti-Toni for every game here, he probably would have been better off”
Not Toni, all the other players from that list are still excellent, but in no way Toni.
Toni would have been better than Iaquinta was. I’m utterly dumbfounded that Iaquinta was Lippi’s first choice while Totti, Cassano, Toni, Rossi, del Piero, and Inzaghi were left behind.
Actually, Gila was his first choice, which is even more shocking.
Lippi took the blame after the game and rightly so. In the past 2 years he has never developed a system and has been trying to find the right formation (even during the WC games!!!).He will forever be a legend but it is sad that his stubbornness ended his career in a huge disappointment. Here is hoping Prandelli will install Italian talent into the team.
A shocking first half performance, and although in the second half we showed glimpses of brilliance, and were unlucky, we deserved to go out. It could be said that everything could have gone wrong, did… but we should still have done enough to go through. It was a really easy group.
Lippi got everything right in 2006, but everything wrong here:
- poor squad selection: Gattuso is an ex-player, where was Ambrosini? Zambrotta doesn’t even start at Milan, surely Maggio was much better? Iaquinta? Seriously? If Gilardino is so out of form, why not give Pazzini a real chance? I’m not even going to mention Cassano/Miccoli/Balotelli etc.
- players being played out of position all the time (Marchisio most notably)
- no clue of form (Quagliarella should have played sooner)
- mentally, we were a shambles, just all over the place. 4 years ago we always looked in control. Not this time. Every time we conceded a goal, we spent the following 10 minutes panicking, rushing into things, pointing fingers. Lippi’s rushed half time substitutions didn’t help
It’s a shame De Rossi and Montolivo were so poor today, after they’d both looked so positive. Pirlo once again showed he is the best in the world at what we does… and he wasn’t anywhere near fit!
Prandelli will have his work cut out, but while I don’t think we have the raw talent we had when Lippi took over from Trap, there is potential – Balotelli, Motta, Ranocchia, Bonucci, Criscito, Marchisio, Balotelli, Paloschi, Santon…
The key is introducing them to the squad earlier, rather than wait until players are old enough to retire.
One more thing (somewhat off-topic, sorry) – a question for ZM: how do you see Pirlo’s next few years being?
As a Milan fan, I don’t think he can sustain playing a full season in his deep-lying playmaker role anymore – it’s become easier to mark him out of the game, now he’s slower and not as fit. Do you think he can re-re-invent himself, maybe going back to a trequartista role? Or do you think he could be doing something else entirely?
Agree with you. Ambrosini would have been a great leader in the pitch. I never understood why Lippi never called him.
I think that Lippi already knew that bringing in Quagliarella and Di Natale was a great combination, but wanted to hide that resource until later stages. Italy always do this, play poorly~moderate in the group stages and suddenly become very dangerous in the knockout stage. However, Lippi didn’t expect that good opposition.
Whatever, though… I’ll be happy as long as Brazil doesn’t win this Cup, but it seems imminent. :’(
It’s always easy to blame the coach, and surely Lippi made some mistakes, but Italy should really realize that their whole calcio is in big trouble. Just look how poor their club sides (except for 95% non-italian Inter) are doing in Europe, how their league isn’t very attractive for good foreign players anymore, how many call ups play for mediocre Serie A sides (including Juve), and what about their strikers?
Italy, the homeland of the Catenaccio, has a tradition of great strikers: geniuses like Conti, Baggio, Del Piero, Totti, icecold finishers like Rossi, Vieri, Inzaghi…and today you have guys like Iaquinta and Di Natale.
It’s not a new problem, their attack also wasn’t very strong in 2006, but then they could compensate it with a great defense, great spirit and good tactics. All that was missing in this WC: they conceded 3 goals against the first attacking opponent, their play looked very uninspired for the first 60 minutes of the most important match, and Lippi never found a system they could really play well.
I don’t think the inclusion of Cassano, Miccoli or some younger players would have changed much, some of those “fresher” players were quite disappointing (Marchisio, Criscito). It seems like at the moment, Italy just has a quite mediocre generation of footballers…but that happens even to great football nations, for example Germany had a very limited squad in the early 2000s (and still managed to somehow reach a WC final;)). Some of those young players could become good players, but at the moment they clearly aren’t, and that’s not Lippi’s fault…
good to see italy get what they deserve, can’t exactly complain when they’ve cheated their way through any tournament they’ve been moderately successful in
Ugh, I’m so tired of these lazy stereotypes.
When exactly did we cheat this time around?
When did we cheat in 2006? Oh, right – I forgot – we won a slightly dubious penalty while playing with 10 men because of a ridiculous sending off.
When did we cheat in 1982?
Of course, Brazil would never cheat, right Mr Rivaldo and Mr Luis Fabiano?
English players never dive to get penalties, right Mr Gerrard?
France? Where would I start…
Argentina? Hand of God anyone?
I have to admit, I don’t mind this envy-fuelled hate at times… means we must be doing something right.
It’s schadenfreude and it is a reflection of how formidable Italy has always been. You should take it as evidence of respect and fear.
I’m Australian and you’re right, the penalty in 2006 was dubious; but you’re also right that it was only slightly dubious. In any case if Australia were good enough we should have won the game already.
On TV in Australia there is collection of clips of Italian players falling over, clutching various bits of their anatomy, howling in agony while looking surreptitiously around to see if the referee has noticed. This is the image of Italy that is being highlighted as well as the genius of Quagliarella’s goal last night.
However you will be pleased to know that their acting is being judged in competition with the acting of players from all teams and that the standard with which they are being compared is…….. Rivaldo! of course- from 2002….. that ratbag should have been kicked out for the whole tournament. Nothing the Italians have done comes anywhere near his epitomy of coldblooded cheating.
In any case there’s always 2014 and I’m sure the Italians will again be among the feared favourites.
don’t forget the Ivory Coast player who pulled a Rivaldo against Brazil and got Kaka sent off…
I really can’t understand why Montolivo plays so far behind. In that position, he will never influence the game at any level. Today I actually thought that would happen, since Marchisio was dropped and Gattuso was brought in, so it was 2 defensive-minded midfielders that could give Montolivo the license he needed. But no, they formed a trio instead.
And it’s just unbeliveable that Lippi chooses Iaquinta over Gilardino. It’s impressive to have Iaquinta at the WC at all.
But none of that erases the great performance Slovakia had. Not only Vittek, but Hamsik had a excellent game, finally living up to the hype around him.
Netherlands are still favourites, but Slovakia will not give up that easily, sure thing.
A strange tournament from Italy. Lippi indicated that he was going to be flexible with his tactics but it never seemed clear what the tactical flexibility was for? None of his systems seemed to be benefit his team and none were designed to counter the opposition (although you wouldn’t expect Italy to change tactics to counter a threat from NZ!). Some of that is down to players in key positions having a poor tournament but I’m not sure he did enough to help them.
This is the weakest Italian squad for a long time. Maybe some of the players will go on to become good international players but currently most are average at best. Individually worse then France, Germany, England, Spain, Holland and Portugal…
When did Italy have such a poor set of forwards? Gilardino, Iaquinta and Pazzini are average (although Portugal would probably take them). Chiellini looks ok but nothing better, only Germany and maybe Holland of the above sides would probably play him if first choices were fit. de Rossi and di Natale look ok and Montolivo is probably better then he has appeared but surely there is a better option then Criscito?
Seconded! The first two group matches have seen two (2!) players in the starting line-up who play for one of last season’s top six (6!) clubs in Serie A (de Rossi and Zambrotta, Gattuso additionally in the Slovakia match). Average age of the first XI over the three matches: 27.9. The team’s spine has been a group of Juve players, who had as bad a Juve season as I can remember (forced relegation aside).
Besides, if you have that little of a creative spark in the middle of the park, you need to at least play your technically best and most playful strikers (or e.g. call up Cassano). I agree with ZM and some of the above posts that Pirlo contributed to the transition game and that Italy overall looked sharper in true 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3 formations, with more players + ball more often in the final third of the pitch – however, I feel they fundamentally lacked quality.
Blame Mourinhio.
He did to Italy what the English have been doing to themselves forever.
Am kidding of course. But only just.
Giuseppe Rossi? I don’t see how playing for Villareal works against him. And Mario Balotelli didn’t get any consideration at all…
And Italy needed someone to step into Pirlo’s shoes.
Italy at the moment are very much at transitional period at the moment but all the talent is either at the wrong side of 30 or in their very early 20’s. Players like Bonucci,Santon Criscito, Giovinco, Ballotelli and Lazanefame can have a big impact in the future but I cannot see what players will be there in the next world cup.
I think it is now the time to forget about 2014 and start building for 2016 and 2018 (a bit like France’s reaction to 1992/1994 – we all know what followed in 1998/2002)
In 2006, it was just the right time for Italy to click. Guys like Pirlo, Gattuso and Canavarro had reached their crowning moment in their careers and were all at the peak of their game.
This World Cup however was one too many for the older guys, and one too early for the newer generation.
The future is bright for Italy, if they can gel a decent team together over their Euro 2012 campaign and into the next WC they could be another force to be reckoned with.
In Italy’s defense, Pirlo’s injury really hit them hard. Pepe did not create as much as expected and the mid field was in shambles. If Lippi had Pirlo playing in the center of the field AND had his first choice defense, his tactics may well have worked and he might again would have come of as a genius. No one should underestimate the distribution and creativity Pirlo provides. Also, they were missing Buffon.
Go easy on him. He did not do too wrong on the tactical front, true that be could have been flexible, but tactics did not really loose them the games. It was the abject display by the players on the field. His blame, and I think he has stated this himself, lies in not being able to motivate the players enough. The players didn’t seem to care too much coming in, reflected in the attitude of Cannavaro towards answering questions related to the team. “My job is to defend”: are these the words of a team leader looking to win a World Cup? Lippi went too easy on these guys, and is now paying for it.
I thought Stoch was probably Slovakia’s best player in the second half, his threat prevented Maggio from getting forward and caused the Italian defence a load of problems by cutting in from the left and running at them.
“Same player” won’t work twice.
Was it just me that thought the Italy team was set up for Pirlo to come on from the first minute? Only Pirlo needs two defensive midfielders to line up with him for him to play well, Montolivo certainly hasn’t in Italy’s other two games. Personally I think the addition of Pirlo limits a team far too much tactically, and teams in Serie A have found a way to choke teams he is in, by simply man marking him.
All this tournament has proved for Italy is that you absolutely should NEVER leave your best in form players at home, eg. Cassano, Miccoli, Totti, D’Agostino
The hard pressing done by Slovakia is impressive, Italy can’t control the ball even in their own half. The last 20 minutes Slovakia ran out of fuel and Italy’s attacking plan finally begin to work. Tactical change is a factor, but not all.
Blame Mourinhio.
He did to Italy what the English have been doing to themselves forever.
Am kidding of course. But only just.