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Chapter 1: Why is Italy's World Cup elimination significant?
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I'm Gab. He's Jules. Blue skies over West London. Dark, stormy skies over Italy since for the third consecutive World Cup. Italy will not be a part of it. We've got to deal with this, Jules. I'm going to rely on your emotional support throughout this.
I'm here for you.
But there's plenty of other stuff going on, I think, that we definitely need to mention.
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Chapter 2: What went wrong for Italy in the match against Bosnia?
Zadby's been confirmed. Czechia are going to the World Cup. Sweden are going to the World Cup. DR Congo are going to the World Cup. Iraq are going to the World Cup. And, of course, Turkey going to the World Cup, too.
Everybody, but Italy, pretty much.
Exactly, exactly. And there will be, I think, at least two Italian managers to the World Cup, but we'll get to that later.
Yes.
Jules, I don't know what the good place to start with this. I'll just kind of tell you like the bare unpleasant facts as I know them. Italy playing away to Bosnia. Italy get an early goal, fortunately, on a mistake by the blocking keeper. They decide to kind of go into lockdown mode, 11 v 11, and then maybe play possession.
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Chapter 3: How did England's tactics fail against Japan?
Maybe the plan was to play possession second half. I don't know because we never got there because 41 minutes in, Alessandro Bastoni, arguably Italy's best defender, makes a really poor decision. Not entirely his fault. Also a function of the fact that Donnarumma's goal kick. Was poor. Was poor. I think probably because he also slipped.
And also, I don't think the defenders were where they were supposed to be to receive it. So he's scrambling. He gets himself sent off. 10 versus 11. Gattuso decides, let's go into lockdown mode and let's suffer because, you know, that's what he was like as a player. And I think it's kind of like all he knows. As a result, Ball's going to take a million shots on goal.
Chapter 4: What factors contributed to Sweden's success in qualifying?
I think it was 33 by the end of the game. They eventually get an equalizer. Goes into extra time, you're tired, it's raining, blah, blah, blah. It's a long time to play with a man down. And then on the penalties, they go out. I don't know how much time we need to spend on the game, because frankly, you and I both agree, Gattuso not fit for purpose.
No, definitely not. I think part of the problem for me is that Gattuso was never good enough, really, to take this team to the World Cup.
One of the big differences as well with why other nations are stronger than Italy right now is probably because they had picked the right coaches in the last few years or so, which hasn't been the case for Italy either, from Spalletti to Gaduzzo, just the last two. And that's a problem. But yeah, Bosnia, I don't think are even very good. Even at home, they were not very good on the night.
All they could do is cross the ball and they did a lot of crosses. But Italy was so poor, I thought, despite the chances that they had, because Moisey can make it 2-0, Esposito can score too. They had enough chances to go and win this game, but it was just not there enough for them.
Chapter 5: What were the highlights of Messi's performance?
And I think you said, you know, Gattuso not good enough to take Italy to the World Cup. What I would say is you don't have to be particularly good. Italy ranked number 11, 12, 13 in the world. 48 teams go to the World Cup. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the difference between having a good manager and having somebody like Gattuso is that Things can go wrong in qualifying campaigns, right?
You get a bad decision, you have a bad day, you go into a group with somebody who's playing out of their skin, like Norway, and so then the margins become slimmer, and then somebody gets sent off in your playoff, and then the margins become even slimmer.
A good manager can message in such a way that say, okay, this isn't working, let's go to plan B, let's go to plan C. He has options, he has understanding of what to do, which Gattuso definitely, I think, did not. Yeah, definitely. I know there's a big argument about, oh, Gattuso and the head of the Italian FA, Gabriele Gravina, should have immediately resigned in shame.
Just in general, where do you stand about immediate resignations in these situations?
Yeah, I think when it's this embarrassing, I think they like to go. I mean, Gravina, Gattuso, you could say, just arrived after Spalletti, nobody wanted the job. But this is not the first time that this head of the Italian FA has been part of a cycle where they missed out on the World Cup.
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Chapter 6: How do tactical decisions impact national teams in World Cup qualifiers?
How is he still there? I don't even know.
Yeah, I guess he won the Euros, maybe. Yeah, true, but even that starts to be quite a while ago. You're dining out off that for a long time.
The two big names immediately put out there, and to be honest, they don't know who's in charge of the FA, so I don't even know how solid these are, but inevitably Mancini, who's unemployed, and of course won the Euros, and Antonio Conte, who's not unemployed, but may decide to go in another direction in the season. Who do you like?
I mean, Conte did well at Euros 2016, didn't he? With a poor team compared to the one Mancini took to the Euros. So I would prefer Conte. I prefer Conte than Mancini as a coach myself. So I'd be very happy with Antonio. Who would you rather go on holiday with? I would hope you would say Mancini.
Yeah, probably.
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Chapter 7: What role do managerial choices play in team performance?
You gave off Mancini vibes. Yeah, probably.
Although I'm sure Conte can be charming on his day. On his day.
Hey, Jules, I... Looking at this group and the failure, FIFA were ranked, Italy were ranked, they slipped down to number 13 in the world. The new rankings are, I don't know if they're 14, 15 or whatever, but they're going to be in that range. Denmark, 21 in the world. Also, of course, not going. So we know, I mean, FIFA rankings are what they are, but we know this is not a bad group of players.
These are players who've been in Champions League finals. These are players who play for big clubs in England and elsewhere. Maybe you could make the point that, and I saw a guy, there's a guy named Omar Chaudhry who's involved with this thing called 21st Club. They do like sort of nerdy analysis, but they're very smart people.
And he made the point about, you know, sort of a lack of superstars, essentially.
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of Italy's coaching situation moving forward?
Like, you know, no player in the top 50 or whatever. Judging goalkeepers is very difficult, but for me, Donnarumma's probably in the top 50 players in the world. Yeah, yeah. Di Marco, possibly, certainly in his position. I mean, probably is top five. Yeah, yeah, I think so, yeah. You know, I don't... We can't use the players as an argument.
However, I think what is undeniable is that in the past, when Italy also had terrible qualifying campaigns, but somehow got through, you had the safety blanket of, okay, none of our midfielders can pass and we kind of suck, but oh, look, here's...
know here's roberto baggio or here's del piero off the bench yeah yeah certainly that level of striker is something we haven't seen yeah striker number 10. we haven't seen that from italy in a long long time yeah i agree i tend to agree with that when you look at some of the past options that they had at number nine especially on number tens or those attacking positions going back to obviously 20 years ago in the 06 world cup but even you
around that kind of era it's not there yet but again it's a cycle we can look at Germany in the number 9 you can look at France in the fullbacks you can look at in each country you've got positions where it's a little bit weaker than in others which is absolutely fine but are you doing anything about it are you doing anything to make this team better I think it's also probably and you would think you know that Serie A being where it is right now
You don't have many goals scored in Serie A. There's not that amazing, great strikers either. Proper number nines either. If you take Lautaro out for the rest, I don't think he's right. So he might not just be the national team. I think he might be more either structural or, you know...
kind of mind thing about strikers and goals in general with Italian football right now which again is part of a cycle I don't know if I fully agree with the goal scored in Serie A argument because yes they're down this season but I think last season or the year before they were number two behind Germany in the big five leagues yeah but this season it's the league with the more nil-nils for example that's fine but I don't
I don't know that that means that you're not going to have good centre-forwards, especially when maybe a bigger thing would be when most of the centre-forwards are not Italian, you can't play them for the Italian national team. Yeah, yeah, no, no, sure. I think that contributes to it as well.
I think part of it, and this certainly applies to Gattuso, and I think the Italy managers who've done well, like Mancini or Brandelli in 2012, Italy got to the... European Championship final as well, although everybody seems to forget that. Football's changed, and you have to play to your strengths. In Italy, you have ball-playing defenders.
Bastoni and Calafiori are two of the best defenders in the world on the ball. Ball-playing full-backs. And he kind of went to it with Politano, of course, as a winger, Mascheri as a full-back, and Di Marco. And the midfielders, you know, they can all pass a little bit.
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