Federico Chiesa was Italy’s best player in their game with Spain, while Italian papers hit out at Leonardo Bonucci, who ‘put the Azzurri in trouble.’
Italian sports papers analysed Italy’s performance against La Roja in the Nations League semifinal.
The Azzurri suffered a 2-1 defeat, ending their 37-game unbeaten run.
Chiesa was one of the few players to get a ‘passing grade’ as he was rated 7/10 by La Gazzetta dello Sport and Tuttosport and 6.5 by Il Corriere dello Sport.
Every Italian sports paper picked him as the best Azzurri on the pitch at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza.
‘Perhaps not the strongest, surely the most entertaining player of the night,’ wrote the pink paper, while Tuttosport pointed out how the Juventus winger was the ‘last one to surrender’ having delivered a late assist for Lorenzo Pellegrini.
His Juventus teammate Leonardo Bonucci, on the other hand, was the worst player on the pitch.
The veteran received two yellow cards in the first half and forced Italy to play down to ten men for the entire second half.
According to the three main Italian sports papers, the referee’s decisions were correct and Bonucci was too naive when he was shown the first yellow card for dissent.
Bonucci was rated 4/10 by La Gazzetta and Tuttosport and 4.5 by Il Corriere dello Sport. After the game, the defender apologised to fans.
The 34-year-old shares low ratings with Lorenzo Insigne, Giovanni Di Lorenzo, Alessandro Bastoni and Marco Verratti.
i said this already many times. italy’s midfield moves alot better with locatelli in it over verratti. i got alot of praise for the guys that came on in the 2nd half for italy. it aint easy running around with 10men against a spanish side that possess the ball so well. it was a pity insigne didnt score that goal. that was a bad miss.
We’ve been amazing and I’m so thankful for their achievements, but I think it’s wise to to freshen things up a bit and not become predictable. I think Insigne, Jorginho and Verratti should be benched more and I would like to see Italy experiment with a 4-4-1-1, like Lippi used in WC 2006.
I think it would suit the players we have and play more of them at the same time and I think it would become easily interchangeable and become a diamond 4-4-2 or 4-3-3. What do others think?
4-4-1-1
Donnarumma
Calabria
Bonucci
Chiellini
Spinazzola
Zaniolo
Barella
Locatelli
Pellegrini
Chiesa
Kean
4-4-2 (Diamond)
Donnarumma
Calabria
Bonucci
Chiellini
Spinazzola
Zaniolo
Barella
Locatelli (at the base of the diamond)
Pellegrini (at the top of the diamond)
Chiesa
Kean
4-3-3
Donnarumma
Calabria
Bonucci
Chiellini
Spinazzola
Zaniolo
Locatelli
Barella
Chiesa
Kean
Pellegrini
Calabria should start over Di Lorenzo who has led to many goals suffered in Euros and after. Verratti slows down the game a lot (I’ve been saying this time and again) .. Locatelli should start in his place. Jorghino doesn’t offer a goal threat but helps the defence, is a good game reader and his experience is needed in the midfield. Pellegrini the “all rounder” should start ahead of Barella who recently is not doing that well for the national team. And if Barella plays … then Pellegrini as False 9 or in place of Insigne who is very inconsistent and misses so many chances!! Bastoni has to learn fast (that 1st goal wouldn’t have been conceded if Chiellini played!!) .. can he and Roma’s Mancini replace Bonucci and Cheillini?? And we need a strong, tall, clinical target man in the box to score from free-kicks and corners when it’s difficult to score from open play. Big Mistake by Mancini not to sub Chiellini for Bernardeschi as soon as Bonucci got sent off. CHIESA 🔥🌟👌 our Shining Star … Universe Protect Him, Bless Him. Forza Azzurri 🇮🇹👊💙 🍀
As a die-hard Azzurri Supporter .. unhappy of course with the loss and how the match panned out but happy ….
1) that the loss and great unbeaten streak came to an end against a top class team like Spain.
2) for lots of lessons learnt for Mancini and the players going forward .. which will only help in the growth process … also with the crucial last round of WC Qualifiers coming up next month!
3) for the fighting spirit shown by the team after a man down and 2 goals down against a top team. Any other team would have got deflated and lost by a big margin. Still managed to get 5 shots on target!!
Forza Azzurri Sempre 🇮🇹👊💙
You cannot have Verratti not being made available. Yes, he does slow the game down and sometimes this is needed. However, most times he needs to accelerate the game and this is for Mancio to put his views across to him. Lets face it that Insigne’s miss cost us dearly and I agree that Mancio should have made the substitution as soon as Leo was sent off. However, I can see his point that there was only a couple of minutes left and we should not have conceded so quickly. Di Lorenzo needed help and Calabria did it for him when he came on. I agree that Calabria should be playing but lets not hammer Di Lorenzo who I feel is getting too much bad press and definitely does not deserve it. We lost but as mentioned, it will do us well. At the end of the day, the crowd was shouting “Campioni dell’Europa siamo noi”. Exactly that, one of the hardest trophies to win is the Euro if not harder than winning the World Cup and we are the current champions so lets be proud of this achievement and stop being negative.