by Puneet Singh
Italy - Brazil. No this isn't The 1994 World Cup Final in the US; rather the Confederations Cup being held in South Africa. The 3 - 0 scoreline doesn't begin to tell half the tale. Here are three things to take from each side after this game.
Italy
1.) Italy are old.
Gennaro Gattuso, Luca Toni, Fabio Cannavaro, Gianluca Zambrotta all showed their age. Simone Pepe, Nicola Legrottaglie, Andrea Dossena and Alberto Gilardino showed they are not Azzuri quality. With each of these players logging significant minutes during the 2009 Confed Cup, failure was inevitable. With the exception of Cannavaro who was under diress from his grandfather passing away, Gattuso, Toni and Zambrotta are on their last legs.
Changes need to be made. Whether Lippi wants to admit it or not, its time for the youth movement, and the Confederations Cup was the best way to get experience for the new blood of Italy. Lippi added the young phenom Davide Santon to the Italy roster, but he didn't get one solitary moment of action during the entire tournament. Same goes for Fabio Quagliarella, a young and coming striker.
Below is a list of an outgoing player with his replacement on the right.
OUT>>>IN
Gennaro Gattuso>>>Gaetano D'Agostino
Gianluca Zambrotta>>>Marco Motta
Nicola Legrottaglie>>>Mattia Cassani
Andrea Dossena>>>Fabiano Santacroce
Simone Pepe>>>Antonio Di Natale
Luca Toni>>>Giampaolo Pazzini
Alberto Gilardino>>>Sebastian Giovinco
Put this young blood with the regulars of Buffon, Cannavaro, Chiellini, De Rossi, Camronesi, Del Piero and the new comer Rossi (who is earning his stripes very well of late) and suddenly Italy looks to have a more balanced and fresh team. I would love to say Cassano deserves a place on this team and he truly does, but we all know that Lippi will never call on him due to Lippi's stubbornness and their feud dating back to the 2006 WC Qualifiers.
2.) Scrap that bloody 4-3-3
Face it, the 4-3-3 was never built for Italy and they don't have the proper pieces for it. A world class 4-3-3 requires what Barcelona only has: attacking full backs who can push heavily forward AND back track, world class wingers who can back track and create opportunities and a midfield comprised of three strong and extremely technical midfielders. During Italy's wonder run to the 2006 World Cup, they could've used this formation and it would've been a success; their players were still young and productive. But now the Azzuri are old and sluggish and it's vividly visible in some players performances such as Andrea Pirlo.
Lippi should just go back to his 4-3-1-2. He has all the proper players in place to be playing that system. With all the new additions listed in section ONE, this is what their squad would look like:
GK: Buffon
RB: Motta/Santon
RCB: Cannavaro//Santacroce
LCB: Chiellini
LB: Grosso
CDM: De Rossi
RCM: Pirlo
LCM: Giovinco
CF: Antonio Di Natalie
ST: Del Piero/Quagliarella and Rossi
Proper players for the proper system. With a younger, creative, athletic squad, mixed with solid veterans and their stalwart keeper Buffon, all they would need is time to build chemistry together and they would be looking at a balanced and formidable team.
3.) Create a new identity
Lippi still seems to have his head and heart stuck in 2006, where he build a team that had a never quit attitude coupled with almost all their players in the prime or late primes of their career. Match winners and grinders along with role players was what the 06 squad was comprised of.
It's time to drop that old mindset and adopt this new one: soccer with flair. Italy is more than capable of doing it with their youngsters and now more than ever its time to move away from the stale old cattenacio football and develop an attacking identity.
Brazil
1.) The 4-2-3-1 is simply brilliant.
Three words to describe Brazil against Italy: entertaining and dominant. This was reminscint to their performance of the 2002 World Cup. Offense was creating beautiful oppurtunities and the play of the wingbacks, Maicon and Andre Santos was sheer domination. They controlled everything going up. Made life a lot easier for Juan and Lucio in the middle.
The midfield and forwards were playing as one cohesive unit, hence the huge success. With Felipe Melo and Gilbero Silva as the two deep lying midfielders, Italy were unable to get past them or conjure anything.
Moving up ahead of them were the LM-CAM-RM, played by Robinho-Kaka-Ramires respectively. The connection between those three was telepathic. From the runs, to the passing, to the 1-2 combos amongst them, this was vintage Samba football. Kaka was on point, similar to his 2007 form for Milan, the one that won him Ballon D'Or. Robinho was taking advantage of an aging Zambrotta, slicing through him similar two years ago from an El Classico.
Finally to the key component which has been working out well so far; the lone striker up forward. Luis Fabiano is replicating his form from two years ago, which made him amongst the most wanted forwards in all of Europe and prompted Sevilla to slap a 40 million euro price tag to scare off. He seems to have found his scoring touch, going on a recent tear leading up to the Italy game where he smashed in two goals within 15 min of each other.
Right pieces and right system, Dunga may finally be onto something. Lippi should take note.
2.) The squad is better WITHOUT Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Diego and Adriano.
It says a lot when excluding four WORLD CLASS players does more to help your team rather than hurt it. But this has been the case. Ronaldo is out of shape, Adriano and Ronaldinho are far from in form and Diego would only serve as a backup to Kaka at best.
As the old moniker goes; if it isn't broken, why fix it? This seems to be the case with Brazil now. With all the right pieces setup in spot there are no spots available for prima donna headcases or late night partiers. That being said, this could possibly be the adios for the loveable R10. If Ronaldinho has no spot in the squad, then it must mean one of two things: Dunga has a vendetta out against him or Brazil may be better off without him.
3.) Keeping a level head.
Brazil CANNOT afford to get ahead of themselves. They must stay focused at all cost. Drifting in and out of games though and taking it easy against weaker competition will only cause Brazil to become lazy and insufficient.
This time around Brazil needs to put their foot on the pedal and keep it there. This is the time for the World Cup the Samba Boys need to come out swinging. They have to have the hunger to regain the number one spot in the World FIFA rankings.
If Dunga can get determination, focus and drive for the next 12 months out of the Brazil squad they could be looking at World Cup title number six.
When it's all said and done you have two squads going in completely DIFFERENT directions of one another. Brazil seemed to be destined for success given their recent runs while Italy is a time bomb waiting to implode and explode. If Lippi cannot right the ship, its only a matter of time before it sinks. Dunga on the other hand is on the highway to success; if he can keep the Brazilian egos in check, he will soon own the right to have an inflated one of his own.
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