Former Italy captain Fabio Cannavaro has praised the Azzurri’s performance in their 2-1 win over Ukraine on Tuesday night, insisting that the national team are beginning to show signs of growth under new CT Luciano Spalletti.
The Former Napoli coach, who replaced Roberto Mancini as head coach of the Italy national team in August, recorded his first victory in charge at San Siro thanks to a first half brace from Inter midfielder Davide Frattesi.
In an interview on page seven of Wednesday’s La Gazzetta dello Sport, Cannavaro, who celebrates his 50th birthday today, noted: “I saw a growing team, one in which we are starting to see the influence of Spalletti, one of the best coaches around at international level.”
He added that Tuesday night’s performance was: “the best we could hope for for the national team. For at least half an hour, we saw an aggressive and very dynamic team, particularly in midfield with Locatelli and Frattesi. The latter, as well as his important goals, showed great growth.
“In the middle, with Barella and also Tonali when he is fit, we have well-distributed quality and physicality. Raspadori up front was fundamental in opening up spaces.
The World Cup-winning captain did feel that there was still plenty of room for improvement, particularly at the back, where he thought Italy had, at times, looked slightly shaky.
“We need to do better in attention and movement,:” Cannavaro explained. “I like Scalvini, I like Bastoni, but they are both used to three-man defences, they are used to different movements, used to spreading out.
“Di Lorenzo often found himself too wide and high and the Ukrainians took advantage of it. Over time we will improve. Congratulations to Luciano who deserves great credit. I am convinced that in the end we will qualify for the European Championship.”
Growing? It’s been 2 games against poor and average opponents.
A draw with Macedonia and narrow win against Ukraine is hardly grounds to claim we are on the mend.
Best thing I saw was not seeing Immobile start, a trend that needs to continue.
rhe growing teams are france portugal spain craatia sebia the list goes on on as for germany they will come stronger is it us that are not growing developing