Looking at the starting 11 I am starting to come to terms with the fact that neither of my teams(USA-Italy) will be in the world cup next year.
Gabbiadini over El Shaarawy, Florenzi out of his role in a useless 3-5-2 formation..... fuckin hell.
Go Italy, some of us Italian Americans need this. please.
Awful for fans.
What is with the Italian manager not subbing on Insigne? Hes been amazing for Napoli.
and probably bad for the world cup.
US may not be the biggest soccer market, but I'm going to guess they watch a whole lot more when the US in playing than not. Same with Italy.
Pretty horrifying for Italy. And not nearly the same type of failure we saw from USMNT. European qualifying is very difficult by comparison to CONCACAF in terms of structure. Italy was in the same qualifying group as Spain, and only one of them could avoid this stage of qualifying. Sweden was only alive based on a superior goal differential over Netherlands.
Italy only lost one qualifier (in Madrid to Spain), and then lost 1-0 to Sweden on a wicked deflection. This is harsh on them.
Sorry, Sanchez
Togo?
One question I'd have for Italy is why in the world is Giovinco not on the team? Incredible on set pieces, links play, scores goals, plays in a similar 3-5-2 setup with his club...it just doesn't make sense.
Link - ( New Window )
La Gazzetta dello Sport: "Apocalypse" ....
Here in the States, we should be paying more attention to Pulisic's piece in the Players Tribune that points out the weaknesses in the US system and underlining why more of our top youth talent should be going to Europe.