We lose on the field, we win off it. With humility and new technical governance

To the block (as defined above) we then need to add a few non-secondary pieces: a goalkeeper who equalizes (and we have one of the best), a playmaker who turns the ball over, accompanied and protected by two good midfielders, and finally one or two forwards who either score, or create spaces for others to score. Allegri would explain it by saying that football is simple. And then he would add that every time you go ahead, you leave the game to others and you think about defending with order and fierce determination. And when you have the best goalkeeper in the world and some exceptional defenders (Chiellini and Bonucci were), you probably win, in Europe and in the World. It is true that Sacchi would be horrified and others with him, but you have to take inspiration from some of those who have won in the past, convincingly. And we, traditionally, have achieved the best results more by defending and with restarts, than in any other way. Like it or not.

Now it is easy (and perhaps unfair) to read everything that happened with a critical spirit. True. But precisely because there was a widespread awareness of having qualitatively limited human material at our disposal (compared, for example, to certain rosters available in some international tournaments of the past), logic would have wanted us to stick scrupulously to the basic rules, without 'creative' deviations, with the result of getting dangerously out of the way and, above all, prematurely out of the tournament.

And the Motivation? Absent. None. Coaching means much more than simply coaching. The famous 15 minutes in the Berlin dressing room are emblematic. Half-time is the most delicate moment of the game and of the interaction between 'the coach' and the players on the pitch. It should be studied very well what was said, word for word. Upon returning to the game, instead of expressing energy and immediate redemption posture, it is as if the power had been cut off. From then on, only agony and resignation.

There was a time when we relied on 'federal' coaches (Valcareggi, Bearzot, Vicini), then it became fashionable to hire names famous for club victories (Lippi, Conte, Mancini, Ventura). Sometimes we were lucky, sometimes less so. Perhaps it would be wise, in the future, to partially turn back. And it is in this exact direction that the innovative choice designed by Gravina fits: a balanced compromise and a clearing house between the exclusive vision of the individual and a select group of experts with federal expertise who can support and help him. A sort of enlightened oligarchy that could finally represent the revolution needed to re-found Italian football. In short, the comforting consolation that for a somewhat confused coach, there is a President, Gabriele Gravina, who is lucid, timely and innovative.

The national coach is certainly something very different from what is required to coach a club. It also requires a completely different mindset. The coach of a national team must make a virtue out of necessity. To claim that one has had too little time to build and amalgamate a known group and develop a playing philosophy is, unfortunately, to have partly misunderstood the perimeter of the role. The job of the coach is thankless and objectively complicated: nothing is invented, it is instead a matter of putting to good use, with painstaking method, the work that the colleagues of the various teams have had time to prepare at home. Calmly and patiently, week after week. If some players are systematically employed by those who see them every day only in certain circumstances and only for parts of the match (mostly in the final phase of the match), perhaps there is a deep and well-founded reason.

Of course then, for the sake of completeness of analysis, other more general sports policy choices should be evaluated and weighed up. Protecting the national nurseries, removing the facilities for members who come from another country, imposing bans or, even better, giving incentives to those who employ local players (especially if they are young or very young) in the first team, so that they can quickly acquire the necessary and indispensable experience. But more time and space would be needed, and perhaps it is not as urgent to intervene in this direction as many propagate, if it is true that all our national youth teams in the last two years have achieved extraordinary results and collected trophies almost everywhere. These results, of absolute value, are further confirmation that this Federation has worked well and with vision.

The national team is a serious thing (also for our image abroad) and is a very powerful promotional vehicle for projecting attractiveness, organisational and planning skills, and seriousness. It is very important: all the other nations, even those with a football tradition that is far less noble than ours, have understood this for some time now. If we are not in a position to do geopolitics with cannons, let us at least do it with the ball: simpler (although it would not seem so), less expensive and more sustainable.