The national team plays the play-off to qualify for the World Cup in Bosnia. Fear is the key word, but Gattuso must push his team beyond the limits of the ghosts of past failures.
Fear is the key word. Fear of failing, of staying at home for the third time in a row, of missing the World Cup and of permanently changing dimensions. We who have built our sporting history on football, four times World champions and two European champions, accustomed to playing for the title and now forced to fight to be there. We are afraid and it is human even if dangerous because fear is a feeling to deal with but it is also a dangerous trap that risks numbing the head and muscles, a luxury that the Azzurri cannot afford in the mud of Zenica.
Italy against Bosnia counts as the World Cup. It’s all valid for the national team and for the Italian football systemin a historical era in which we dominate in tennis, we break records in winter and summer sports, we discovered that we have the fastest man of all on a motorbike and the boy who surprises on a car. In short, woe betide us if we stay behind and forget what we have been and what we would like to be again soon.
Gattuso with few certainties in the mud of Zenica
The national team flew to Zenica, in the heart of Bosnia, with few certainties and many ghosts in their heads. Gattuso chose to field it with the same formation that once struggled in Bergamo before beating modest Northern Ireland, confirming Retegui in attack with Kean and Locatelli in the director’s position. A risk? Perhaps. But also a wise decision because the coach needs everyone in the moment of the supreme test. For the others, starting from the free-range Pio Esposito and Palestra, there will be space and time as the minutes pass and the fear increases.
Bosnia is a different opponent than the Irish. The Fifa ranking should not be misleading with the 66th position. Poker player Barbarez’s team is solid but also has technical qualities and, above all, enjoys home court advantage. The Zenica stadium is scary even if it is a theater with only nine thousand seats: it will be a sporting hell and the mix of snow and rain of the last few days has made the pitch extremely heavy. The welcome won’t be the best and it’s partly our fault, having given the Bosnians the skit of the Azzurri’s micro celebration which was perfect to energize the environment even more.
What game will it be? It’s possible that Bosnia will give us the burden of doing so, leaving us the ball to act vertically when it restarts. It is unlikely that they will come and attack us high, more likely that they will repeat what they did against Wales on the night in Cardiff when they risked losing several times, and they were also lucky, but they built the feat on that resilience. The best known man is Edin Dzeko, nine years in our football. Those who will make us suffer a lot, however, will be others, starting with the defenders Kolasinac and Muhamerovic who play Serie A with profit.
The night of truth for Gravina and the ghosts of the commissionerate
Bosnia-Italy is the day of truth not only for Gattuso and his boys but for the entire movement. There is no alternative plan: either the World Cup or a tsunami that would wipe out the federation and system from the foundations. The truth is that many wouldn’t mind returning from Zenica beaten to be able to settle their scores on sports politicsbut for once the clubs were close to the national team. They didn’t allow the internship or the impossible rescheduling of a championship day, but players also arrived in Coverciano who in other situations would not have set foot in the Italy retreat because they were injured or convalescing.
In short, this is not the time for claims. We need to go beyond Bosnia and land in a World Cup that awaits us with a group (Switzerland, Canada and Qatar) in which we can also think of making a good impression and building something. We are all with Ringhio Gattuso, called up in the summer when the abyss opened under our feet. He has done an honest job in recent months, he didn’t have time to build a tactical suit for the national team but he has repaired his head and motivations. It’s not much, but it’s all we have when entering the Zenica basin. We have to make do with it. See you on the other side.
Read also:
