“A disgrace,” the headline reads Sports Courier on the front page with a photo of a Nazionale player on the ground, hands on his face. “In Berlin, the Azzurri have hit rock bottom, it’s an Italian disaster,” wrote the daily after the defeat against Switzerland 2-0 at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. “We were unable to play football and the main person responsible for this mishap is (coach Luciano) Spalletti,” judges the Sports Courier“It’s a national failure,” adds Tuttosport, “Switzerland has taught us a lesson, the whole system needs to be rebuilt.”
Without honor and “without excuses”
This is also the feeling of the Gazzetta dello Sport which crosses its front page with a huge “Everything has to be redone”, after “a new black page for our calcio” with in the background a photo of the Italian players looking defeated in front of their tifosi who whistled them at the end of the match. “The time for excuses is over: without play, without character, without ideas, without a flash without honor, without excuses, Italy after having failed to qualify for the last two World Cups, has left the Euro, humiliated by its opponent, contested by its tifosi”, writes the daily with the pink pages.
“In four matches, if we exclude the first thirty minutes against Albania (2-1 victory, editor’s note), Italy has shown nothing of what was expected of it,” continues the columnist of the best-selling sports daily in Italy.
Coach in the crosshairs
For the Gazzetta dello Sport which points out “many structural problems explaining this national disaster”, the person responsible is also easy to find, Spalletti, arrived last August as an emergency to replace Roberto Mancini. “He has not managed to give the Nazionale a technical physiognomy, any more than he has managed to give the players he has chosen determination, the desire to fight”, regrets the daily.
The general press has also seized on what the Corriere della Sera describes it as a “technical, tactical and personality shipwreck”. “We have fallen into the third world of football, after two missed World Cups, which we saw on television and this inglorious European Championship in which we could only beat Albania. Between the two, there was the night of Wembley, to which we must cling, a flash, a flash in the desert”, continues the daily.
“Italy’s disaster,” headlines the Roman daily Il Messaggero. “The Azzurri: not even the illusion of existing,” adds the Reppublica. While none of these headlines call for Spalletti’s resignation, Italian football will know more about its future later today: the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) has called a press conference with Spalletti and FIGC president Gabriele Gravina.
Luciano Spalletti, confirmed in his functions
The dismantling of “Casa Azzurri”, the space where sponsors of the Italian Football Federation received their guests and where the Nazionale held its press conferences in Germany, began early Sunday morning. But this work did not reach the Italian management: despite a disastrous tournament, despite his tactical procrastination, Spalletti, 65, was confirmed in his functions.
“Luciano Spalletti has our trust, keeps our trust, he must continue his work,” insisted FIGC president Gabriele Gravina at a press conference on Sunday. “This is a project lasting several years, it is unthinkable to abandon a project after eight months,” he insisted.
