Football Italia was among the accredited media for Italy’s first training session of the October break on Monday, here are three things we spotted at Coverciano.
Monday was a busy day for Luciano Spalletti, who held a press conference in the afternoon after being named Italy’s ‘Sports Diplomacy Ambassador’ by foreign minister Antonio Tajani.
The training session started at 16:30 local time and lasted circa one hour and 30 minutes. Spalletti warmed up with his players before starting drills with the ball, focussing on attacking moves and defending.
Players involved
It is no secret that the ex-Napoli coach is a fan of building from the back, as he also reiterated during his press conference. Therefore, he trained his players on different moves involving goalkeepers, using a 4-3-3 formation. This is how Spalletti lined up the Azzurri on Monday:
- Vicario; Biraghi, Mancini/Gatti, Bastoni, Udogie; Frattesi, Locatelli, Bonaventura; Zaniolo, Raspadori Orsolini
- Meret/Donnarumma; Darmain, Acerbi, Scalvini/Mancini, Dimarco; Barella, Cristante, Tonali; Berardi, Scamacca, Kean.
Federico Chiesa and Giovanni Di Lorenzo watched the entire training session from the touchline.
Attacking
The Azzurri worked on possession drills starting from kick-off and goal kick situations and trained on different throw-in tactics. In one of these circumstances, Gianluca Scamacca scored a lovely backheel goal. Generally, Spalletti urged his players to move the ball quickly and see passing lines connecting full-backs and attacking wingers but also full-backs and centre forwards.
As we already noticed in a 2-1 win over Ukraine last month, when Davide Frattesi scored a brace at San Siro, central midfielders have a crucial role under Spalletti and this was reflected in Monday’s training session when the likes of Giacomo Bonaventura, Nicolò Barella, Frattesi and Sandro Tonali were involved in attacking play and often found themselves inside the box to shoot or provide the final pass.
Defending
The second part of the training session was focused on defence drills, especially from set pieces. While Spalletti was very talkative during the first part of the training session when he explained to some players the movements he expected to see to create numerical advantage, the coach’s staff members gave more instructions when it came to the defensive part.
They mainly worked on three situations: free kicks and corner kicks from the right-hand side and central free kicks. Inter stars Federico Dimarco and Barella took all free kicks from the edge of the box. Barella was also one of the players defending short corner kicks, joining Juventus striker Moise Kean who looked very focused and was praised by his teammates and Italy staff members. All players seemed in a good mood ahead of games against Malta and England.
Today, Tuesday, October 10, Italy train behind closed doors while training sessions on Wednesday and Thursday are open to the media, but only for the first 15 minutes.
Based on the players in the squad , if all are fit , chiesa raspadori Bonaventure, front 3, midfield 3 nicolo berrella, christante and fratessi, back 4 , di Marco , acerbi ,darmian, udogie , donnarumma.should start , I think.
When is benching Donnaruma for Vicario going to be given serious consideration?