Casting an eye inside the Hamburg ballot box is not like living a nightmare for Italy. Albania, Spain, Croatia: our three opponents in the group, the top two and the best four third-placed teams of the six groups advance to the round of 16. Albania, Spain and Croatia in order: next June we will have the obligation to go beyond the obstacle of the first phase. We are reigning European champions, but it matters little.
What matters will have to be the growth of a national team, from August 15th, in the hands of Luciano Spalletti: the physical condition of our boys at the end of the season will be decisive and the work period will be decisive – around twenty days – during which the Azzurri will be able to metabolise the football of the Tuscan coach. Albania knows us very well: their coach Silvinho was Roberto Mancini’s deputy and this Italy is still full of players who with Mancini touched Everest at Wembley on 11 July 2021.
Spain is “hurt” by the painful injury that happened to Gavi, the best talent of recent times who grew up in and around Barcelona: his knee went askew, the season is already over. Croatia has a “world” DNA, much less European: in six participations in the World Championships, the Croatians finished on the podium three times, second once, third twice, at the European Championships they never got beyond the quarter-finals. We start on June 15th, then we go to the field on the 20th and the group closes on the 24th: it went well, not very well. We avoided the Mbappe and Bellingham phenomena, at the helm of France and England.
#Euro #draws #Italy #smile