albiceleste said:
This is Fabio Cannavaro's take on the reasons for the failure and what needs to be done to improve Italy's fortunes.
allow me to give u some hindsight on this matter. what cannavaro is saying here is a huge load of bullshits. the thing is lippi is being heavily criticised for leaving some of italy's best talent at home. and since he's a stubborn idiot who can't face the fact that italians were right when they complained about his callups, he said "
well i don't think we have better players than the ones i brought here".
now, having said that lippi is an arrogant, stubborn idiot, cannavaro is doing the right thing here. he has to back up his coach and he can't throw shit on his teammates by saying that this wasn't the right team to bring in south africa. so he basically repeats what the coach says. that's the right thing to do for a captian and i understand why he's talking like that.
but obviously that's a huge load of bullshits.
camoranesi has been off form this entire season,
zambrotta has been one of the worst sidebacks in serie a this season,
iaquinta has been injured for almost the entire season and
cannavaro himself has been the 4th or the 4th worst cb in the entire league (and i'm not exagerating here!).
this was not the best team to bring in south africa, and yes, there were much better players to pick.
and the whole point "italy is not producing as much talent as we used to" is just ridiculous..... do u need that much talent to qualify in the easiest group in the entire world cup? do u need a team filled with world class players to handle teams such new zealand? honestly fabio, fu*k you!
the only interestint statement is this one
It's only natural to feel pressure but we were too afraid. I saw it in the faces of my team-mates."
ant that brings us back to the point i was making before about the reason of this failure and the impossibility to judge single players' performances.
we all now how important is coolness. it's not just a "performance factor". it doesn't just effect the quality of your performance. it decides wheter u will be able to perform (at all) or not. and it's not just about sport. it's something we all have to deal with. wheter u're a student or a doctor or a lawyer, when u panic, when u let anxiety get the best of u and black out, it doesn't matter how good u are at your job, u won't be able to do anything at all.
u might have studied for weeks and mastered a course. if u black out during the exam, words won't even come out of your mouth. u won't be able to reply even to question whose answers u actually know.
that also applies to sport. how many times have we seen a much better tennis player freaking out and being hammered by a weaker opponent?
well collness is even more important in football. coz, unlike tennis or a university exam, football is the result of a group effort. your performances are hugely effected by your teammates performances.
a team is like a collective being. it's like a single living entity, whose will is formed by the will of the members of that entity. it's something that transcends the individuals and assumes its own form and life.
and that form is a result of the players state of mind.
very often we hear fans complaining about a team's approach to a certain situation.... things like "our opponents were crushing us, why did they stay so deep, why didn't they realise they should have tried to move the possession line higher on the pitch".... it's not like players don't realise theese things, of course they do. but it's extremely hard to counteract to the "team's will" and overturn the flow of a game.
because that team's will, that approach, that sitting back is nothing but the result of a composite reaction. 3 or 4 players get worried about the growing pressure of their opponents and will unconsciously track back, deeper in their own midfield, as a reaction to their fear. then other players (who may not share the same fear) will have to do the same, in order to adjust their position to their teammates' position.
if the midfield moves back behind the midfield line, there's no point for the forwards to remain close to the opponent's box.... they'll never get a ball if they don't track back a little..... so the whole center of gravity of the team moves backwards. that will give the opponents even more confidence and allow them to increase the pressure even further.
we usually call this "flow" wich is actually a pretty fitting expression, coz the team's approach isn't something "stable"; it changes according to the situations. let's imagine that the team which was crushing the opponent begins to slow down because of the fatigue of 3 of their players. the other team will feel that change and that might be the opening for a change in the flow of the game.... let's say the 2 sidebacks get more confident because of the opponents tiredness.... they start pushing forward.... as a result of that the 2 cbs will move higher on the pitch.... then the 2 central midfielder will adjust their position to the 2 cbs and move in the opponent's midfield again and so will react the cf, who will get back in the opponent box.
the reaction of 2 players changed the mood of the entire team. this is how unstable, how delicate is this equilibrium. u might call it as u want: flow, mental approach, state of mind.
now if the fatigue of 2 players on the opposing side can determine such a dramatic change in the team's state of mind, what happens when 3,4 players of your team are in a complete state of panic from the very beginning of the game? if just the fear of 3 players can move the whole team 10 meters backwards on the pitch, what happens when u have 3 of your players who are completely blacking out?
well in theese cases u have.... manchester united - roma 7-1 .....or catania - palermo 5-0....... or italy-slovakia.
and u don't need all the players to back out. just 3 players in sheer panic will screw up the entire team. because 3 players blacking out is already enough to mess up any possible scheme. and it's not just that. after 20 minutes of football those 3 players will "infect" also the rest of the team. because when u realise that 3 of your teammates are so scared and under pressure and confused that they can't even make an accurate 5 meters side pass, then u will get worried as well... and it doesn't matter if 10 minutes ago u were feeling like a god, filled wth confidence..... u will inevitably step backwards to cover for your teammates lapses.
it's like a chain reaction. it will mess up the whole team. and once theese kind of situations occurr, it becomes pointless to discuss about individual performances.... u don't have a match anymore, how can u talk about performance.
how can u judge my passing game, if for the whole game i was worried some of my teammates couldn't even receive a 5 meters pass and control the ball? my worries about my teammates' condition will obviously effect my game aswell, even if i'm in a great form and feel as confident as ever.
that's why i think it's unapproriate to express judgments over single players performances in the new zealand match and the slovakia match.
once u see the players unable to make 3 pass in a row, well that ceases to be a match. u're witnessing a collective failure that makes impossible to single out any player's performance.
this is probably the worst possible scenario in a football match. when the whole team gets out of control because of the panic of some players, there's no way to turn back things... the match is as well as gone. even the coach's directive won't have any effect anymore, because once this happens the coach loses the grip on the team.
so u shouldn't ask yourself "who was the weak link?" "who had a bad performance and who did well?" this sort of question don't matter anymore. the only good question is "how did the team get to the breaking point?" and "why the coach didn't see this coming during the week?"
theese are "the right questions" to make.
sorry for the longest post... as usual
