Which Italy will we see at the Euros?

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – JUNE 01: Italy team poses for a photo during the international friendly match between Italy and Russia at Letzigrund on June 1, 2012 in Zurich, Switzerland.

“L’Italia rispondono bene in una crisi” (“Italy respond well in a crisis”) is what die-hard Azzurri fans say of their team. They have every reason to say that, given their 2006 World Cup triumph in the midst of calciopoli, arguably one of the world’s biggest match-fixing scandals: something that has raised it’s ugly head this time around as well.

In fact, so grave is the impact of the match-fixing crisis that National Team Coach Cesare Prandelli has said that he would have “no problem” if the Italian team was withdrawn from the European Championships, just days before they face Spain in their Group C opener, and the crisis now surrounding Italian football has now left it’s mark on the Italian team.

Lazio skipper Stefano Mauri was slated to be part of the national team’s plans, but was arrested along with eighteen other footballers following raids by 280 police units in 23 different Italian cities. Mauri would have missed the tournament through injury anyway, but his backup options in the form of Thiago Motta and Antonio Nocerino leave much to be desired. In addition to Mauri, Prandelli also decided to exclude Zenit St. Petersburg defender Domenico Criscito from his final squad after he was questioned by Italian authorities at the team’s training camp.

With Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti stating that suspending professional football in the country for “two to three years” should solve the match-fixing situation, the squad was imploding from within, with claims even reaching the side’s legendary shot-stopper Gianluigi Buffon, whose representatives quickly scrambled to distance him from all that was going on.

“There is nothing which could even carry the faintest suggestion of a connection between Gianluigi Buffon and any betting activity that would concern him in any irregularity either with respect to federation rules or criminal law. There is not the slightest foundation for any suggestion that this is connected with a bet,” said Gigi’s lawyer Marco Valerio Corini.

But despite this dark thundercloud engulfing the Azzurri, Prandelli’s Italian side is far different to that of his predecessor Marcello Lippi. Italy were in shock after being knocked out of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa at the hands of newbies Slovakia. Here were the defending champions who had bested Zinedine Zidane and Co. four years ago at the Olympiastadion in Berlin, the team that bested France once again en route to negotiating the Group of Death at Euro 2012, going out of the Rainbow Nation with nary a whimper. It was a squad that was stale, that was ageing, that proved unable to generate young talent to continue the cycle of the leviathan that was Italy. Italy was in shock - a shock that had last been experienced at the hands of a certain Ahn Jung-Hwan in Daejon in 2002.

But in truth, when season-long club loyalty was replaced by national pride, it was easy to see where the problems lay: Jose Mourinho had won the treble – the Serie A, Champions League and Coppa Italia – with a team consisting of eleven foreigners. Internazionale Milano failed to contribute a single player to signore Lippi’s squad.

“Perhaps it was too much gratitude towards the men with whom I won the World Cup in Germany four years previously that led me to pick a worn-out squad,” Marcello Lippi admitted after the fiasco, but quickly added: “But I did not leave anyone at home who would have done any better.”

There was an air of negativity, of self-doubt, as Gianluigi Buffon put it: “To me it looks like we will struggle to qualify for the European Championship. It will take us more than two years to come out of this tunnel.”

“The actual job of reconstructing the national team did not scare me,” said Prandelli, as he set about the task of rebuilding the Azzurri. The first thing he did was to change the ethos of the team. Italy under Lippi were a unit unto their own. Prandelli made them realise that they were a symbol of the people they represented. “I realised that the first aim when I took over was not the results in themselves,” he said. “I didn’t know when and if we would start winning again, but I knew that the first thing I had to do was to bring the national team closer to the people of Italy again.”

One of the first things Prandelli demanded from his squad was to be there for the people when they were approached by them. “We are very privileged,” he said. “Someone asking for a photograph or an autograph cannot possibly be a hassle.”

Prandelli forged the bond between popolo and squadra by actions. He took his players to a prison in Florence as an act of goodwill. He made his players train in the heart of Calabria, on a training ground that had been built on land confiscated by the Calabrese mafia.

“Some things help people who live in particular situations and I hope this is not an isolated gesture,” Prandelli said. “We all want to face the mafia and emphasise that the country is moving on, winning with its resistance.”

But problems continue to plague the Italians, who looked positively lazy against Russia who thumped them 3-0. For a side so adept at defending, the inventors of catenaccio seemed very vulnerable at set pieces. By the time they face the Republic of Ireland in their last Group game – a side that are known to exploit set pieces – they would’ve faced Spain and Croatia, meaning their tournament, should they play in a similar vein to that of their recent friendlies (which included losses to Uruguay and the USA in February), could be over.

Curiously enough, Prandelli has been able to bring the best out of Balotelli, and he believes that the man who pulls on the blue shirt of Italy is different to one who usually plays his football in shirt of a much lighter shade. Balotelli has been the subject of racist taunts whenever he turns out for the national team, and has vowed to ‘kill anyone’ who hurls abuse – and bananas – at him over the summer. Food – quite literally – for thought for Prandelli. “I will not accept racism at all. It’s unacceptable. If someone throws a banana at me in the street, I will go to jail, because I will kill them,” said the Manchester City striker. “Let’s see what happens at the Euros. I hope it will pass without a problem.”

Cesare Prandelli is a man who spent many years on the football pitches of parish churches during his childhood, as a result of which he is a man of deep faith but never publicly shows it. A situation similar to all of Italy, where football and Catholicism are intertwined, if one were to remember Roberto ‘The Divine Ponytail’ Baggio in 1994.

But let’s hope, that like Paolo Rossi and Co. in 1982, and like Fabio Cannavaro and Co. so recently, Italy can, to paraphrase Albert Einstein, achieve their greatest accomplishments when faced with their greatest hardships.