A creepy night. After the group stage warm-up and first taste of a home or away match against Austria, Italy prepares for the most difficult and exciting game of his entire journey, with the awareness that, once concluded, nothing will be the same as before. This quarter-final with Belgium (21), in fact, can definitively launch the Azzurri towards the conquest of the European Championship, or sadly send them home, with all that follows.
The challenge is tough, there's no doubt about that, but not prohibitive: if it's true that the Belgians command the FIFA ranking, compared to our seventh place, so is that they never won anything, not even in these years of fat cows from a technical point of view. In terms of play, then, they have certainly not shown a better football than Italy, and are also struggling with the ailments of De Bruyne and Hazard, on whose use there is still much uncertainty. In short, we can play it at least as equals, provided however that we are not intimidated by theirs more international experience, as well as one undoubtedly superior physicality.
"We face the best team in Europe together with France, if they are at the top of the ranking it is because they have been able to do well - he confirmed Mancini in the press conference – We have great respect for Belgium, but we want to win: we will have to play our game and then see what happens”. The enthusiasm, in some ways excessive, in the group waned a bit after the match against Austria, in which the Azzurri struggled so much that they seriously risked elimination.
“Switzerland beat France, Holland went out against the Czech Republic: this European Championship taught us, for the umpteenth time, that there are no easy matches – Mancio replied with a hard face – We suffered, it's true , but shooting on goal 26 times. There were tough moments, but in the end we managed to win deservedly".
Indeed, this traveling version of Euro 2020 (a year late) is reserving many surprises, so as to escape any prediction. Better for us, one might say, given that Belgium, at the start of the tournament, was given as a big favorite together with France. The cockerels, on the other hand, are already out, just like Loew's Germany, De Boer's Holland and CR7's Portugal: obviously, a shoulder to the Red Devils would allow us to dream of glory, also in view of a semifinal with the winner of Switzerland-Spain (18 pm).
We therefore need the best Italy and Mancini, in this sense, hasn't had easy days: the doubts, after the match against Austria, have increased exponentially. In the end, however, after seeing the last training sessions, the manager decided to confirm almost en bloc the eleven already seen at Wembley, with only the news Chiellini e Church, which they should take the place of Acerbi and Berardi. The blue 4-3-3 will see like this Donnarumma in goal, By Lorenzo, Bonucci, Chiellini e Spinazzola in defence, Stretcher, Jorginho e Verratti in midfield, Church, Property e Insigne in attack.
It goes without saying that, in the house of Belgium, all the attention is focused on Eden Hazard e De Bruyne, who came out battered from last Sunday's match against Portugal. “It's a race against time to make a decision – he glossed over Roberto Martinez – Is it pretactic? No, the approach is to have the players available, for Eden it's difficult, it's a muscle injury, while De Bruyne's is another type of injury. It is a decision of the medical staff, not football, we will only take it when we have heard from the staff."
The Spanish coach rightly plays pre-tactical, but the feeling is that the City midfielder, struggling with an ankle sprain, has a better chance of making it than the Real Madrid striker, whose muscle discomfort, however slight, needs more caution. The Belgian 3-4-2-1 should thus call Courteous between the poles, alderweireld, entertain e vertonghen in the back department, Miller, tielemans, witsel e Thorgan Hazard in the median, De Bruyne e Carrasco behind the sole point Lukaku.
Play in Monaco, in the splendid setting of theAllianz Arena (Football stadium of Bayern Munich), and here we start favorites: gods 14.500 spectators present, in fact, most will be blue, seen and considered that the Bavarian city, as the saying goes, is not the southernmost in Germany, but the northernmost in Italy.
All eyes will be on the pitch well before the Slovenian Vincic kicks off to see if Mancini's men they will kneel or not against racism. They will, barring sensational twists and turns, but only because Belgium, which has always been in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, will do the same. Strange decision, unique in the European football scene: the freedom to choose is sacrosanct, copying others, making a bad impression on a world level, no. We hope that the Azzurri are better on the pitch than with diplomatic issues: the semi-final, we are sure, would silence any controversy.
