The Future is Bright, The Future is Azzurrini

As the Azzurri floun­dered and failed in South Africa, it was left to the Azzur­rini to pro­vide the Ital­ian nation with some­thing at cheer about or at the very least restore some national pride, which they man­aged to do, and even more so if it weren’t for the great Ger­man machine.

Head­ing to the Euro­pean U21 Cham­pi­onships in Swe­den, the Italy U21 side were the favourites, along with Eng­land and Spain U21’s. Boast­ing an unbeaten qual­i­fy­ing record and an impres­sive group of young­sters, more of whom have been tried and tested this sea­son in Serie A, the omens looked pos­i­tive for the Azzur­rini, who have won this tour­na­ment a record five times.

Sev­eral of coach Pier­luigi Casiraghi’s play­ers have this sea­son bro­ken through in for their respec­tive Serie A clubs, Marco Motta has made the right-back slot at AS Roma his own, Domenico Crisc­ito and Sal­va­tore Boc­chetti are stal­warts of the Genoa defence, Clau­dio Marchi­sio has shown for Juven­tus he can dom­i­nate a mid­field, while the front trio of Sebas­t­ian Giovinco, Robert Acquafresca and Mario Balotelli are a fear­some prospect for any defence in Europe.

In a group that con­tained hosts Swe­den, Ser­bia and Belarus, a semi-final place was all but assured for the Azzur­rini, how­ever a nil-nil draw with Ser­bia in the open­ing game may have led to some fur­row­ing of eye­brows among the Ital­ian nation. But, the pos­i­tive from an open­ing day per­for­mance were that this U21 side looked a very excit­ing prospect cou­pled with some truly excel­lent players.

In the fol­low­ing game against Swe­den the Ital­ian defence held firm against an extremely tal­ented Swedish attack, con­tain­ing Mar­cus Berg and Ola Toivonin. A ten man Italy tri­umphed two-one, with two goals from Balotelli and Acquafresca assur­ing the Azzur­rini of vic­tory. Then a brace from Acquafresca pro­pelled Italy from one-nil down to Belarus, to vic­tory and sub­se­quent first place in the final Group stand­ings. A semi-final with unfan­cied Ger­many awaited.

Ear­lier in the day Eng­land played Swe­den, and pro­duced game of the tour­na­ment. Swe­den com­ing back from three-nil down, only to lose on a penalty shootout. Italy vs. Ger­many had a lot to live up to.
Maybe lack­ing in goals the sec­ond semi-final was an enthralling game. Ger­man goal­keeper Manuel Neuer pulled off a string of top class, if uncon­ven­tional saves as Italy totally dom­i­nated from start to fin­ish, with only a momen­tary lapse that even­tu­ally cost them the match. Andreas Beck’s forty-eighth minute strike meant Ger­many would play Eng­land in the final.

Unde­serv­ingly the Azzur­rini were dumped out of the com­pe­ti­tion. How­ever, the per­for­mances of many Azzur­rini through­out the tour­na­ment were a joy to behold.

The first to spring to mind has to be Giovinco, he ter­rorised defences in each match and unlucky not to get on the score sheet at all. It is clear from his per­for­mances, the ‘Atomic Ant’ is best used as a tre­quartista, oper­at­ing just behind a front two. His inci­sive pass­ing, end­less run­ning and eye for the unex­pected led to him pick­ing holes in all the defen­sive lines put in front of him. His attack­ing part­ners, Balotelli and Acquafresca had dif­fer­ing tour­na­ments. Balotelli showed his amaz­ing poten­tial and tremen­dous skill, but also his fiery tem­per and ungainly atti­tude. Acquafresca on the other hand had a rel­a­tively suc­cess­ful tour­na­ment, bag­ging three goals and a man of the match per­for­mance against Belarus.

The mid­field of Marchi­sio, Paolo De Cegile and Luca Cig­a­rini demon­strated the ben­e­fits of a well bal­ance cen­tre. Com­bin­ing defen­sive solid­ity and organ­i­sa­tion with drive and cre­ativ­ity. Luca Cig­a­rini being the stand­out pupil. His pass­ing range, vision and set pieces dis­tinct high­lights, described as an heir appar­ent to Andrea Pirlo and on this evi­dence he is surly the only viable candidate.

For me, most praise must go to the defence. Andrea Con­sigli, Bochetti, Crisc­ito, Marco Andreoli and Marco Motta were the most solid unit of the cham­pi­onship. Andreoli and Boc­chetti were impe­ri­ous as a defen­sive pair­ing, both act­ing as this own ver­sion on the ‘Berlin Wall’ they laid the solid foun­da­tion for many an Italy attack. Crisc­ito was show­ing the form that has been with him all sea­son. But it was Marco Motta who stole the show through­out the Azzur­rini jour­ney. Bomb­ing down the right flank like a man pos­sessed, as if sin­gle hand­edly want­ing to claim the title for Italy. As team cap­tain, showed author­ity and lead­er­ship, while con­tain­ing opponent’s advances with pre­ci­sion tim­ing and com­po­sure. This boy man (as Sir Paul would say) given a few years is cer­tain to be attract­ing the inter­est of Real Madrid, who seem intent on buy­ing the worlds best.

As the Con­fed­er­a­tions Cup left Italy des­per­ate for any glim­mer of hope inter­na­tion­ally, a full-scale fire­works dis­play blazed in Scan­di­navia. A few of these play­ers could and should have been present in South Africa, where many oth­ers will most def­i­nitely be close to Marcelo Lippi’s thoughts. The future is bright, the future is Azzurrini.