Pierluigi Casiraghi believes Italy should overcome Sweden in their World Cup play-off because “quality is worth more than organisation”.
The striker scored in a 1-0 win at the San Paolo to beat Russia in a play-off 20 years ago, so Gazzetta dello Sport asked for his opinions on the coming clash.
“If you play in Italy, you always see Italy in the World Cup and you think: ‘if we qualify everything is normal’,” Casiraghi explained.
Pierluigi Casiraghi believes Italy should overcome Sweden in their World Cup play-off because “quality is worth more than organisation”.
The striker scored in a 1-0 win at the San Paolo to beat Russia in a play-off 20 years ago, so Gazzetta dello Sport asked for his opinions on the coming clash.
“If you play in Italy, you always see Italy in the World Cup and you think: ‘if we qualify everything is normal’,” Casiraghi explained.
“If we don’t qualify, those players will be remembered as those who suffered a historic elimination, like [North] Korea. The last time was 60 years ago, right?
“[CT Giampiero] Ventura has players with more international experience, more accustomed to such games and who can handle it in every respect. That’s one of the differences between Italy and Sweden.
“They’re more scrappy, physical, tactically diligent in their 4-4-2, or variants of that. But in matches like this quality is worth more than organisation.”
Casiraghi was also asked what formation the Azzurri should adopt for these matches.
“It’s hard from the outside to make any judgement except this one: it won’t be an easy choice.
“One thing I always think of though, especially when you’re playing for something as important as this, you need to play the best players.
“I would add that the three at the back is a more proven solution, especially for the defenders. And maybe with the 4-2-4 the team had some balance problems, both in the build-up and defence.
“Maybe that approach would be too much of a gamble for delicate games like this, especially the first one.
“[Ciro] Immobile and [Andrea] Belotti are two central strikers, they can’t play in a front-three. And [Lorenzo] Insigne isn’t even a trequartista.
“It’s not blasphemy to drop one of them for the away leg, we’re playing twice in four days so they’ll all be important.
“Three reasons Italy will go to the World Cup? Because they’re stronger than Sweden. Because they only really got one game wrong, in Madrid. Because considering everything, including the draw, they deserve it.
“And because a World Cup without Italy would be too sad.”