Italy, a title holder in reconstruction, facing the Spanish challenge

The Squadra Azzurra face Spain in the group stage on Thursday in Gelsenkirchen, for their first big test in the tournament.

The years go by and are never the same for the Italian football team. Having arrived at the Euro three years ago with a series of 27 matches without defeat, the Nazionale is this time putting its title back on the line without being completely confident. Qualified for the 2024 edition in a landslide thanks to a draw against Ukraine (0-0), Gianluca Scamacca’s teammates started their Euro slowly, with a 2-1 victory against Albania, but in conceding in twenty-three seconds the fastest goal in the history of the European Championship.

The match against Spain, Thursday June 20, in Gelsenkirchen, will therefore be a first real test for a defending title team in reconstruction. Because it must be admitted, the Squadra Azzurrain its 2024 version, no longer has much to do with that of 2021.

Within his squad, only nine players participated in the title epic, including Federico Chiesa, Jorginho, Giovanni Di Lorenzo and especially Gianluigi Donnarumma. HAS 25 years old, the PSG goalkeeper is the most capped player in the team present in Germany, with 63 caps to his credit, while Olivier Giroud and Antoine Griezmann have already played respectively 134 and 130 matches with the Blues. A renewal that took place “by force of circumstances, with international retirements or departures abroad like Lorenzo Insigne [qui a rejoint la MLS] but also out of need, because after the last Euro, Italy had a bad time.”analyzes Guillaume Maillard-Pacini, journalist at Eurosport.

As a result, the Squadra Azzurra lost some of its executives, such as the central hinge Bonucci-Chiellini, so decisive at Euro 2021. Just before the start of the tournament, it also had to deal with the losses of two starters in defense: Francesco Acerbi and Giorgio Scalvini.

Offensively, Gianluca Scamacca has the difficult task of being the number 9 long awaited by Italy. But if the striker is the author of a thunderous end to the season with Atalanta with nine goals scored since the beginning of April, he remains for the moment stuck at one achievement in 17 caps with the national team. Currently, the most prolific player in the Italian jersey is Inter midfielder Nicolo Barella with 10 goals, a figure well below European big names like Kylian Mbappé (47 goals) or Harry Kane (63 goals).

Without claiming that the Italian selection lacks “talent” as José Mourinho affirmed, it especially lacks automatisms. It must be said that there was also a change on the bench. After five years of service, Roberto Mancini left the ship in August 2023, to join the head of the Saudi selection. As a result, his successor, Luciano Spalletti (ex-Napoli), had barely a year and 10 preparation matches before the start of the tournament to set up a new project.

And if he can count on a hard core of players playing at Inter Milan, who know each other and whose coach Simone Inzaghi offers a “football close to that of Spalletti”the technician probably did not have enough time. “Spalletti is a coach who is very particular about his principles, about what he wants to produce. And there, he has to manage a selection, that is to say he has to absorb principles into players that he sees it once a month at most, it’s complicated”analyzes Guillaume Maillard-Pacini.

On the other side of the Alps, we have already resigned ourselves. “What emerges from the press is that we are not asking the team to regain the title, but to have a good run, to reach the quarter-finals. The objective remains the 2026 World Cup”, confides Guillaume Maillard-Pancini. But as the journalist reminds us, the “Squadra Azzurra is never as strong as when it is not expected”. Germany is also a country that is doing well. In 2006, it was on the lawn of the Olympiastadion in Berlin that the Nazionale had won its fourth star.