The next day, if possible, it hurts even more. Even with a cool head, in fact, it is incomprehensible how Italy exited the World Cup like this, without being able to score a single goal against a modest national team like the Swedish one. We talk about it with a striker like Ciccio Graziani, someone who knows something about inflated goals, especially with the blue shirt. For him, who played and won that competition as a protagonist, it was an even greater pain to watch Italy's defeat helplessly in front of the TV.
Graziani, how was the awakening after the elimination?
“I am very sorry, it hurts to think that we could all have been there to cheer for Italy at the World Cup and instead find ourselves seeing it in a completely different way, without passion, without participation. At the moment I have little interest in the World Cup because there is a lot of disappointment, there is something on the horizon that involves us much less. I feel great discouragement, thinking that we won't be there makes me incredibly angry ”.
Every bankruptcy has one or more culprits: let's start with Ventura…
“I start by saying that everyone is to blame but he certainly has a good percentage: he put the tactical aspect before the quality of the players, a real madness. In the national team you don't train, you select, a coach's job is to call the best and make them play like in the clubs, not put them at the service of your ideas. Making summons like this doesn't make any sense."
What was the biggest mistake you made?
“Don't put Insigne, something very serious. Ventura has penalized the greatest talent in Italian football, one of the few who jumps man, who can create numerical superiority, one who, sportingly speaking, knows how to "kill" the opponent. But he completely ignored it, at this point I don't even know why he brought it. I had already said in unsuspecting times that doing so was suicide, as well as relying on the 3-5-2 with players like Darmian and Candreva, forced to play 80 meters on the pitch. He bet on an idea and lost, today all of Italy rightly reproaches him for it ”.
Let's move on to Tavecchio, the man who chose him and who directed the entire qualifying campaign: should he leave too?
“Everyone has to go home, a full reset has to be done. Away with him and everyone close to him, the people responsible for this flop must go. It would be nice if they resigned but they won't, they will remain attached to the armchairs as per our national custom. He said it well Malagò: the incompetent must step aside. But then I ask: how was it possible to renew Ventura's contract after the defeat against Spain? How could the federation allow such a thing? They knew very well that he was a coach at risk, instead they locked him up until 2020. This means having little respect even for the economic aspect".
What percentage of blame do we give the players?
“High. Not only were we unable to score a goal in two games but we weren't even able to take free-kicks from the edge and this, in my opinion, is even more serious. The quality expressed was very low, so much so that I don't understand if there wasn't a nice component of presumption. We went home against a modest national team, unfortunately we have to start thinking about the fact that, qualitatively speaking, the light has gone out”.
Let's go back to the coach: who do you see in Ventura's place to rebuild Italy?
“I honestly don't know, we are still licking our wounds, trying to reason today is very difficult. Unfortunately we will have time to think about it, we need to reflect on what we need to start again. Ancelotti, Mancini, Di Biagio are all different situations, they can't be compared to each other: you have to think about it head-on. To date we still have Tavecchio and Ventura, this is the only fact”.
Chapter also closed for several senators: behind them is the Italy of the future or should we prepare for very difficult years?
“There are good young people, I'm thinking of Caldara, Rugani, Chiesa, Donnarumma, Conti. You just need to have the courage to launch them and start again from them, after all Chiellini, Buffon, Barzagli, De Rossi would have stopped after the World Cup anyway. Let's reset everything and start over, then we'll see the results but I remain convinced that Italian football has good resources."
