World Cup 2010 Comment: Slovakia Clash Represents Time For Marcello Lippi And His Italy Players To Act Like Men

Everybody’s met a hypochondriac. There’s always something the matter with them. If you’ve got a cold, they’ve got the flu. If you’ve got a cough, there’s suddenly an unconvincing croak emanating from their mouths as they speak, paving the way for a major strain of ‘whooping cough’ to come. They can’t just let somebody else be the centre of attention for a minute.

Italy are fast becoming the hypochondriacs of the 2010 World Cup. France’s Nicolas Anelka and Raymond Domenech had an argument over his positioning in the side? Well, Vincenzo Iaquinta and Claudio Marchisio are in the same boat with Marcello Lippi. John Terry has been telling Fabio Capello who to pick for the England team? Well, Daniele De Rossi has led Italy’s players in making public their disappointment at the exclusion of a Francesco Totti-type in the Azzurri set-up. Add to that Fabio Cannavaro’s response to questions over his defending being to blame a mix of team-mate and referee, and we’ve got a whole lot of players failing to take responsibility for Italy’s current ailments.

Cannavaro ¦ I didn't do it... 

So the time has come for Lippi and his men to enter the real world. There can be no more excuses, no more blaming this person or that, no more half-hearted efforts. And this has to start at the top. It’s time for Lippi to bite the bullet and change things around.

Discipline At The Back

Whilst the defence is far from at the top of its form, it doesn’t need to be changed too drastically. More than anything, a better defensive discipline needs to be instilled as a team in set piece situations, but that should be looked at on the training ground. Leonardo Bonucci for Fabio Cannavaro may well be potentially the right switch, but we all know it’s a switch that’s simply not going to happen. But others could, and should.

Freshen Up The Middle

Andrea Pirlo’s return from injury should be met with a starting shirt in Riccardo Montolivo’s stead. The Fiorentina man has been very willing but not always able on the ball at times and has been patchy at best in the tackle.

Palombo ¦ Potential addition

Marchisio needs to be put out of his misery in preference of Angelo Palombo as an extra central midfielder in a 4-3-3. Palombo has absolutely no trouble making the challenges Montolivo doesn’t much love and has the ability to make himself look reasonably at ease no matter which side of the centre he’s shuffled towards. Add to that the fact he’s a talker, a rallier, and a tough old sod. He’s Gennaro Gattuso with knees (and a passing brain).

Maybe I’m being harsh on Marchisio, who has most certainly not been asked to play within his comfort zone during the World Cup – and arguably during the season past at Juventus, but the side needs a freshening up, and Palombo is the right type of character to bring into this situation.

Familiarity Up Front

Up top there are a number of possible solutions to the countless questions posed over the first two group fixtures, but what Lippi must bear in mind is the opposition. Are Slovakia likely to really come out at Italy given that they need the win maybe more than the Azzurri? Well they certainly can’t play as Paraguay did in the opener in Cape Town.

So there needs to be an alertness about Italy up front, a liveliness. And there also needs to be some kind of familiarity, given that the attacking set-ups he’s gone with in the last two fixtures have looked like speed-daters with no interest in going near each other who are just counting down the five minutes before they can move on to the next person.

Quagliarella & Pepe ¦ Former partners of Di Natale

A potential grouping appears in the one-time Udinese frontline of Antonio Di Natale, Fabio Quagliarella and Simone Pepe. The three of them together made the Friulani look a much better team than they do these days, with plenty of inter-changing of positions and creative attacking moves. And since cohesion and creativity have been sadly lacking so far, maybe that could be just the answer.

Rallying Cry

Perhaps it will put a few noses out of joint to make such wholesale changes to the starting line-up, but Lippi has surely called up 23 men, not 23 boys. It’s time for them all to stand up and be counted, and time for the head coach to take a risk in a bid to rally his team from their slumber. Because if Italy fail on Thursday, then the welcoming committee on their return to the peninsula may well sort out the men from the boys.

Kris’ XI v Slovakia:

Marchetti

Zambrotta – Cannavaro/Bonucci – Chiellini – Criscito

Palombo – Pirlo – De Rossi

Pepe – Quagliarella – Di Natale