Last night Italy defeated Monetengro 2-1 in their 2010 World Cup qualifying clash in Lecce. Carlo Garganese is not convinced by the Azzurri attack, and questions whether the target man system should be scrapped…
Results-wise Italy have made a solid start to their World Cup qualifying campaign as, with 10 points from their first four matches, they are currently top of Group 8, three points clear of the Republic Ireland, who have played a game less.
However, there is clearly something lacking from this Italy team at the moment, and without doubt it is in the attacking third. In the double-header against Bulgaria and Montenegro the three man trident of Antonio Di Natale, Alberto Gilardino and Simone Pepe did not shine, while none of these players particularly impressed on an individual level either.
Pepe did have an excellent first half-hour last night when he created Aquilani’s first goal, but he then disappeared off the radar. Time will tell if the Udinese man has the quality required at this level. The simple question to ask though is: Is this a World Cup-winning attack? I have no hesitation in saying that the answer is no.
I am a big fan of Di Natale’s style of play but, despite being an Italy regular for over a year now, I still can’t work out whether I like him or not. In some matches he has been a real livewire, while in others, such as the last three World Cup qualifiers, he has offered little. Di Natale turns 33 in 2010, and has still never played for a big club that regularly competes in the Champions League. Quite clearly there are question marks as we have never really seen him play at the highest level of European competition. He did compete with Udinese in the Champions League a few years back, but that was a brief romance.
My views on Gilardino are well known, so I won’t trawl through these again. What I would like to ask readers though is whether or not the employment of a target man striker is the best way forward for the Azzurri. Gilardino is not up to the job, Luca Toni, it seems, no longer is either, while the likes of Marco Borriello and Vincenzo Iaquinta are not of world class international calibre. The Brazilian-born Amauri is certainly an option, albeit a controversial one, but we will have to wait and see what happens with his passport situation, and there are also rumours today that Dunga will call him up for the Selecao anyway.
What Italy do have in abundance though are exciting support strikers and pocket dynamos, who may not physically hold up the ball and score many headers, but can frighten defenders with their creativity, skilful running and link-up play. Of course I am talking about the likes of Antonio Cassano, Giuseppe Rossi (who was called to the recent squad), Sebastian Giovinco, Mario Balotelli, and even Fabrizio Miccoli, who has possibly been the best Italian forward in Serie A so far this season. These are players who, despite still having much to prove in one way or another, certainly could be worth looking at.
There seems to be an obsession in modern football with playing a big target man-type centre forward. Chelsea have Drogba, Arsenal have Adebayor, Man Utd have Berbatov, Juventus have Amauri, Inter have Ibrahimovic. At international level, Italy have gone down this route with Toni in recent years, while even Fabio Capello’s England are relying on Emile Heskey to carry out this job.
Some even argue that two skilful centre forwards cannot play together any longer in the modern game, something I find absolutely horrifying, as it would mean the death of pure football. Thankfully, Spain proved at Euro 2008 with Torres and Villa that there is still room for two similar attackers working in tandem and, perhaps, as Giorgio Chiellini said earlier this week, this is the model Italy should follow.
The best football Italy have played in the last decade was at Euro 2000 when an injury to Christian Vieri forced Dino Zoff to scrap the big centre forward approach, and go for two smaller, but more intelligent, frontmen in Francesco Totti and Pippo Inzaghi. The Azzurri served up some delightful pass-and-move stuff and had the tournament in the bag until Sylvain Wiltord’s tragically fortuitous 94th minute equaliser for France in the final in Rotterdam.
Football may have changed a lot in the past eight years, but the current target man system that Lippi is employing just does not convince me at all at the moment. You can’t play a system if you don’t have the players for it, and at the moment Italy do not have a top class target man who is eligible.
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