Rome: From not qualifying for the World Cup in 2018 for the first time in 60 years to a 28-game unbeaten streak, Italy have come a long way in the last three years leaving everyone with a common question, ‘what transpired Italy of such a comeback?’
The answer to their astonishment lies within the boss Roberto Mancini who has found the perfect youngster-veteran ratio to lead Italy back to the top stating his entire squad bought into the ‘product’. “The guys are very clever and they wanted to win every game, they have a good mentality,” said Mancini after their win over Wales in the ongoing Euro 2020.
A Premier League and Serie A winner with Manchester City and Inter Milan respectively, Mancini’s appointment three years back attracted criticisms for his defensive notions but turned out to be the perfect choice for this desperate Italian side. For the fact, Italy came into Euro 2020 scoring 37 goals in 10 games.
Italy qualified for the Euro 2020 pre-quarterfinals with an all-win record in Group A and are two wins shy of equaling the team record set under Vittorio Pozzo nearly a century ago. They started their conquest with a 3-0 win over Turkey in the opener before drubbing Switzerland with an identical scoreline. They went past Wales 1-0 to book their round of 16 spot against Austria.
Against Wales, Italy made an astonishing eight changes in the whole game that saw the return of much-missed Marco Veratti who had to sit out of the first two games due to injury. The reason Mancini enlisted for making such a number of changes was entirely inspiring. Mancini stated he is striving towards making Italy a team where no player gets differentiated as starters.
“Today they have shown that they are all starters. It was a game that we wanted to win even if it could be unneeded, but succeeding was a matter of mentality, it wasn’t easy. There are no starters, there are only the 11 who go on the pitch,” he said.
“I’m very happy also for this reason because we changed eight players and we played a very good game,” added the Italian Boss, dismissing the question of whether Veratti has done enough to earn himself a starting position.
Although there have been a lot of changes in this Italian side since 2018, Mancini ensured the playing standards remain unaffected. His methods had earned a lot of approval from players like Leonardo Bonucci, who praised the spirit of togetherness within the team and highlighted it to be their primary factor behind the resurrection.
