Spalletti's words, Gravina's silences

OSLO - Silence. Even more bombastic as the 25,000 Vikings shouted their joy in the Ullevaal Stadion bowl, and as Luciano Spalletti's feeble, soft-spoken voice tried to explain the reasons for the defeat. No word, however, came from Gabriele Gravina, the Federcalcio president reconfirmed (sole candidate) at the beginning of the year. The man, Gravina, who led the FIGC to the European success of 2021, but also during the flops of the failure to qualify for Qatar2022 and Euro2024, just last summer. And so, in the absence of explicit declarations (which would have been necessary, necessary and, in the end, useful on the night of Oslo), it is that silence, which must be interpreted in some way, that speaks.

Bench at risk - These are decisive hours for the bench of our national team (the true symbol and emblem of Italian football, more so than clubs now belonging to foreign funds and composed of players from the five continents). Luciano Spalletti has made mistakes, but he has also - and this must be acknowledged - put his face to it: both in taking responsibility for the Norwegian collapse and in pointing out the wrong attitude and attitude of at least part of an Italian team that he had also moulded and selected.

This is what the coach will want to talk about with his first referent, Gravina himself, in these hours. But it is obvious that the conversation will be wide-ranging, because Spalletti will ask for more support, closeness, compactness to face the next difficult months, a long purgatory that will have as its only possible landing place the caudine forks of the world playoffs. But Gravina's silence in Oslo may suggest that it is precisely this support for the coach that is waning, along with those convictions that brought him to the Azzurri bench in August two years ago, after the championship triumph at the helm of Napoli and replacing the resigning Roberto Mancini.

Scenarios and names - Needless to say, the most immediate effect of the Figc number one's silence is to unleash the toto-name, which was already raging at the final whistle of the Ullevaal massacre, and which became even more credible and circumstantial on the return flights from Oslo to Milan, Rome and Florence (destination Coverciano). Who could succeed Spalletti now, now, even before Monday, or immediately after the Reggio Emilia match with Moldova?

There are those who hypothesise the great ex, the model of Rino Gattuso, a career as a controversial centre coach, but just back from a formative experience in the Croatian championship, and who knows everything about the Azzurri environment; there are those who hazard the resounding return of Roberto Mancini, who even in the last few hours has repeatedly admitted the error of presumption he made two years ago, and which led him to leave the bench he loved most; Finally, there are those who put forward the most credible and reasonable hypothesis, namely that of Claudio Ranieri's arrival at Coverciano, the Great Fixer, who after his extraordinary championship with Roma (led from the relegation zone to a step away from Champions League qualification), and once Gasperini has been placed on the Giallorossi bench, could accept yet another challenge to crown his inimitable career in a definitive manner.