High tradition defence retains Azzurri’s soul intact

As Romelu Lukaku lay disconsolate on the sting of the touchline, unable to fathom how his shot from two yards away from the objective was intervened on the final second, the Italian pair of Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Spinazzola was feverishly celebrating close to the aspect put up.
Soon, Leonardo Bonucci and Giovanni de Lorenzo joined the melee. Their pleasure was boundless. As if one among them had scored a objective. A goal-denying block that was as worthy as a objective. Or perhaps greater than a objective within the context.
With Belgium accelerating in pursuit of their equaliser, Jeremy Doku burned down the left, burst infield and slipped a scrumptious ball to Kevin de Bruyne. He slid the ball in the direction of Lukaku, unchained from the shackles of Chiellini on the rarest of events, and needed to simply trundle the ball net-wards. He did precisely that, bunting fairly than blasting the ball, however just for Spinazzola (he was stretchered off within the 78th minute due to damage) to leap from nowhere and plant his thigh between the ball and Lukaku.
The entire sequence — Spinazzola sniffing the hazard and snuffing out the shot with out resorting to a wild sort out or cynical lunge — was a homage to the excessive defensive artwork that Italian soccer nonetheless retains near its coronary heart. It was not a last-ditch rearguard effort, however a masterclass on defending.
Vibrant and velvet is perhaps this Italian crew, however they’ve neither forgotten nor forbidden the soul of their soccer. Their defence, nonetheless, is their essence. Defence as clever science or scientific artwork, defenders as surgeons and painters, scientists and sculptors. Those that snatch the ball off the toes with out disturbing the shoelaces or splitting the shin-pads. In the previous, Italy did have bruising wind-up retailers, who had been at instances crude and cringe-worthy, however a majority of them from the 90s to this time have been easy operators. Banking on intelligence, anticipation and positioning than smouldering physicality. All the damaging stereotypes of Italian defensive arts – niggling and pinching and sly shirt tugging – are pointless for Paolo Maldini and his lineage of defensive artists and craftsmen.
Some of them would possibly look belligerent. Like Chiellini, who resembles a brawler prepared for a punch-up in a pub, who has damaged his nostril 5 instances and had his ears chewed, however they not often stoop to violence. He is eternally screaming and shouting, gleeing and gesturing. Strikers detest this sort of defenders, for they’re all the time there, even when they aren’t there bodily, like a shadow. They congest your house and kill your morale, they’re by no means in haste or hurry, by no means clumsy or careless.
For Chiellini, son of an orthopaedic surgeon, it’s extra science. “It’s a subtle psychological game, reading a striker’s mind,” he had mentioned in his autobiography I, Giorgio. But it’s not one thing somebody is born, however acquired over years. Chiellini does this by watching footage of his opponents weeks earlier than the sport, comprehending all the things from the idiosyncrasies to actions and preferences.
“It helps me form a connection with them. I need to know what they like most, which runs they make. It’s my way of getting on their wavelength and syncing up with them. I watch every goal a team has scored that season too. You get an understanding of how they play, how they score and how you might be able to guess their intentions.”
He appeared to have studied Lukaku so minutely that he was a totally neutered drive. This was one other tribute to the good Italian defensive custom–man‑marking and the flexibility to win one‑on‑one challenges, which has gone out of trend on this period of zonal marking.
Each defender has his personal position. Chiellini is the aggressor. One of probably the most pure ball-playing centre-backs round, he bounds out for opponents excessive up the sphere. Bonucci is one thing of a defensive regista, a self-anointed “soldier” launching assaults and shutting down the time and house that the adversaries get on the ball, all the time in the best place on the proper second, transferring earlier with out permitting the attacker to do what he desires.
In his duels with Kevin de Bruyne, the latter usually emerged the second greatest whereas a number of of Italy’s thrusts started with him.
But his is a subtler craft than Chiellini, and therefore you can miss him in case you are not particularly searching for him. Spinazzola is the attacking nerve (although he’s exceptionally schooled within the superb virtues of Italian defence). Di Lorenzo blends each, and drops deep to turn out to be the third centre-back when Italy is attacking. Even his second of blemish, which resulted within the spot-kick, was a human exception.
Together, they’re an impregnable drive, protecting themselves related whilst Italian soccer has shed its over-emphasis on defence. But Italy’s ambitions are fuelled as a lot by the enterprise of their forwards as by the rigidity of their defence. That defensive huddle, as Lukaku lay disconsolate outdoors the touchline, tells the story.