Luciano Spalletti is not a Swifty. “I’m an old man,” he told the radio station RDS a few years ago. “I like Italian singers. Luca Barbarossa, i Camaleonti. The Vagabond is one of my favourite songs. Old stuff.” Even so, Spalletti has endured an incredibly Cruel Summer.
He called it “bruttissima”. Horrendous. “I’ve been coaching 30 years and I never saw a team of mine so lacking in fight as was unfortunately the case (at the Euros) in Germany.”
After Italy’s bloodless defeat to Switzerland in Berlin, Spalletti tried to mitigate for the holders’ exit in the round of 16. He argued that Inter winning the Scudetto with five games to spare had hardly helped. Rather than go into the tournament fresher, the core of his team weren’t as sharp as he would have liked. Too many players weren’t used to high tempo football and the skill needed to play it. He made a recommendation: go abroad.
Spalletti directs from the sidelines at Parc des Princes (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)
In a grey and windswept Paris on Friday night, nine of the starting XI he picked for Italy’s Nations League opener against France were still Italy-based. To begin with it felt like nothing had changed. Twenty-three seconds into Italy’s Euro opener against Albania in June, a careless throw-in from Federico Dimarco allowed Nedim Bajrami to score the fastest goal in tournament history. Italy had never conceded so early.
Until, that is, Bradley Barcola showed he’d seen the tape of what Nico Williams had done to Giovanni Di Lorenzo in Spain’s win in Gelsenkirchen and copied it. He surged past Napoli’s captain and gave France the lead after just 13 seconds. The goal happened so fast Italy’s captain and goalkeeper Gigio Donnarumma had been caught unawares. He was still coming back from hugging a staff member when Di Lorenzo lost the ball and hadn’t even velcro-ed up his gloves.
Spalletti smoothed out his eyebrows in disbelief. All he could do was grin and bear it as France’s Rive Gauche looked like it was once again home to Picasso, Sartre, Hemingway and Fitzgerald. For 10 minutes, Di Lorenzo seemed a football illiterate in their company. But then Italy began to play. The 3-5-1-1 Spalletti worked on in March, then partially and unexpectedly abandoned at the Euros, was back. Once Italy settled it was clear they had a better plan than France.
The Torino midfielder Samuele Ricci, who made the provisional squad for the Euros but not the final cut, interchanged positions with centre-back Riccardo Calafiori. Arsenal’s new signing was nominally on the left of Italy’s back three where his team-mate, Alessandro Bastoni, plays for Inter. But Ricci’s clever rotations allowed Calafiori to play and create overloads everywhere; at full-back, as a No 6, then as a No 8. When Ricci dropped in, Bastoni was able to shuffle across to his preferred side.
Calafiori bypasses Michael Olise (Claudio Villa/Getty Images)
There was more energy in midfield. Andrea Cambiaso, Juventus’ total footballer, cut in on his left from the right flank where Federico Chiesa sometimes plays for the Azzurri. Spalletti had allowed Chiesa to stay and train with Liverpool after his deadline day move from Juventus. Switches between Cambiaso and Dimarco pulled France all over the place and created the time and the space for runners into the box.
A diagonal from Cambiaso to Dimarco came right back to him as Italy went right-to-left and back again via Lorenzo Pellegrini in the No 10 role. His lovely arced cross for Cambiaso at the far post was nodded back for Davide Frattesi to score from point-blank range. Somehow the ripped blondie struck the bar. It came at a time when France had been on top. As a chance, it felt like an exception. But another came and then another. The recipient of another switch, Dimarco combined with Sandro Tonali, his old cross-town rival, whose back heeled assist set-up a sumptuous volley for the equaliser.
It was a goal good enough to make the Mona Lisa smile and Tonal-dinho’s role in it was heartwarming after everything he’s been through.
The unofficial Wetherspoons ambassador frequently snuck behind the France midfield to receive passes and in the final third and, if the ball didn’t stick, he quickly won it back. Tonali also powered forward, holding off Warren Zaire-Emery as he broke into the box in the 83rd minute. After almost a year on the sidelines his mix of silky touches and steely tackles stood out
“He played a magnificent game,” Spalletti told RAI. “We were a little worried he wouldn’t be able to last 90 minutes but in the final stages he went on a couple of driving runs and almost got through on goal. We’ve got a great player back.”
The imperious Sandro Tonali (Xavier Laine/Getty Images)
As encouraging as the “Midfield Maestro from Milano” was (note to the Gallowgate End, he’s a Geordie from Lodi), Tonali wasn’t man of the match. Calafiori’s intrepidness helped Italy outnumber France until the wild horse came up lame with an injury. Ricci grew in confidence as the game went on, dribbling under pressure inside his own penalty before launching a ball that, by dint of a regained second ball, started the move that led to Italy’s second goal.
“You already knew what Tonali could do,” Spalletti said. “Ricci, on the other hand, played a different role to what he’s used to at Torino and was fearless.”
Giacomo Raspadori, the top scorer in Spalletti’s tenure, lost his place to his old Sassuolo team-mate Gianluca Scamacca on the eve of the Euros. But he came on as a sub at half-time here and made an instant impact. Partnering Mateo Retegui, as he did in Italy’s one euphoric moment against Croatia in Leipzig, he pounced on a loose ball the Argentine-Italian had hustled from Milan’s new midfielder Youssef Fofana, played a pass back out to him and then watched as a cut-back found its way to the onrushing Frattesi for Italy’s second.
A back-up for Inter, who continues to come up with big goals (see the Ukraine game in the Euro qualifiers), Frattesi could have had a hat-trick at Parc des Princes. Denied by the crossbar in the first half, only a miraculous save from Mike Maignan stopped a glancing header from a corner going in.
Frattesi then went off injured, a second casualty of the night, and was replaced by Tottenham’s Destiny Udogie, another player who, like Tonali, missed the Euros. Udogie played 20 minutes in midfield before reverting to left-back. He, too, would play a role in Italy’s clincher. Udogie brought down another Cambiaso switch and kicked on before making an inside pass to Raspadori, who managed to do what few attacking players can; he made an admittedly unlucky William Saliba look a little foolish. His Romario-esque finish made it 3-1.
Italy celebrate a restorative victory (Tnani Badreddine/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
It was Italy’s first win in France for 70 years. The Azzurri hadn’t beaten a top nation under Spalletti before. They hadn’t beaten one full stop since England two years ago when Raspadori got the only goal at San Siro in another Nations League game. In the context of the Switzerland debacle two months ago, the victory at the Parc came as a major surprise, not least because Didier Deschamps fielded a strong side. Where was this performance in Germany, then?
“It’s the start of the season,” Spalletti said in explanation. “The players are fresher than they were at the end of last season.”
The hope is the Premier League contingent of Tonali, Calafiori and Udogie draw more benefit from their experiences in England. The first two could do to play as regularly as Udogie does at Tottenham. Then there’s Chiesa who will find it tough to find a role in this system and dislodge an intelligent, two-footed all-rounder like Cambiaso, who has taken his place at Juventus and with Italy.
For 75 minutes in Paris’ 16th arrondissement, there was a belated and overdue glimpse of what Spalletti might be capable of with time and patience. For now, it’s one game. It’s the Nations League. But mercifully it might also be the end of Spalletti’s cruel summer.
(Top photo: Tnani Badreddine/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
