La deuxième liste d'Antonio Conte

Ça commence à devenir un peu plus sérieux. Antonio Conte a communiqué aujourd'hui sa liste de 30 joueurs pour l'Euro 2016, en attendant la liste définitive, Mardi 31 Mai.

C'est fait pour les gardiens: Buffon, Marchetti, Sirigu. Pas de Donnarumma ou de Sportiello. L'expérience au profit de la jeunesse donc...

Pas de grosses surprises au niveau des défenseurs. Izzo et Tonelli rentrent à la maison. On notera l'absence d'Acerbi mais la présence de Rugani et celle d'Ogbonna. L'un deux ne fera probablement pas partie de la liste finale. Les arrières sont mixés avec les ailiers, probablement parce que le 3-5-2 semble être la formation avec laquelle Conte jouera cet Euro. Zappacosta, l'arrière du Torino et toujours là, alors que De Silvestri n'y est plus. Un peu surprenant. Les réguliers, Darmian et De Sciglio sont bien là. Il n'y aura donc pas d'Abate.

En ce qui concerne les milieux de terrain, Benassi a réussi le premier test et est toujours présent, contrairement à Cataldi et Soriano. Montolivo et Thiago Motta y sont, mais leurs conditions physiques devront être évaluées dans les prochains jours. Leurs places ne sont pas du tout garanties. Pirlo est donc officiellement écarté, alors que Sturaro fait une entrée surprise.

Quant aux attaquants, pas de Borini ou de Pavoletti. Ce dernier rêvait cette semaine d'être un nouveau Schillaci, mais la tâche de mener l'Italie le plus loin possible reviendra a Eder, Immobile, Insigne, Pellè ou Zaza.  Eder et Pellè semblent être certains de leur présence dans la liste finale, les autres, surtout Insigne, un peu moins. Insigne pourra payer le prix de son incapacité à bien s'adapter au 3-5-2 de Conte.

Voici la liste complète:

La premiere liste de Conte pour l'Euro 2016 - Premiers Enseignements

Hier soir, Antonio Conte, le sélectionneur de la Squadra Azzurra a dévoilé sa première liste dans le cadre de la préparation pour l'Euro 2016. Cette première liste contient 28 joueurs, mais exclue les joueurs du PSG, du Milan AC, de la Juventus, d'Anderlecht et de Manchester United à cause de finales de coupes.

Ces joueurs feront un stage de plusieurs jours et une liste plus réduite sera communiquée le lundi 23 Mai, et ce avant la liste définitive du 31 Mai.

Qu'est-ce qu'elle nous apprend donc cette liste? D'abord, ceux qui ont manqué à l'appel:

1. Pas de Pirlo. Est-ce une surprise? Pas vraiment. Andrea savait très bien qu’en s'exilant aux Etats-Unis ses chances de faire l'Euro seront minimes. Mais Conte en l'appelant même après son transfert à New York, a laissé planer le doute. Finalement non, la classe de Pirlo nous manquera cruellement. Pareil, pour Giovinco, même s'il marque beaucoup de buts en MLS (de très buts de surcroît), il ne fera pas partie du voyage.
2. Pas de Berardi. Sassuolo reste sur deux très bonnes saisons en Serie A, et Berardi y est pour quelque chose. Sansone aussi...
3. Pas de Belotti. Vu la qualité des avant-centres actuels, Belotti et Berardi ont probablement leur place, au moins dans cette liste élargie…
4. Pas de Rannochia. C'est un joueur qui a malheureusement régressé avec le temps et n'a jamais vraiment confirmé après de débuts prometteurs.
5. Pas de Rossi: quel dommage... Giuseppe a certainement sa place dans la liste des 23.

Ensuite, les nouveaux ou les revenants: 

1. 7 joueurs sont appellés pour la première fois: Sportiello, gardien de l'Atalanta, Izzo du Genoa, Tonelli de l'Empoli, Benassi et Zappacosta du Torino, Cataldi de la Lazio et Pavoletti du Genoa. Les 5 premiers feront probablement une apparition assez brève, alors que Cataldi (surtout avec les forfaits de Marchisio et Verratti) et Pavoletti (surtout vu la qualité des autres attaquants encore une fois) ont vraiment une chance.
2. Daniele de Rossi: pas vraiment à l'aise ni avec Rudi Garcia, ni avec Antonio Conte ces deux dernières années, Daniele semble un peu mieux en ce moment et le voir dans la liste fait vraiment plaisir. C'est un joueur qui a beaucoup donné à la Squadra Azzurra et son expérience ainsi que sa grinta (et même ses buts) seront indispensables. Malheureusement, sa place, contrairement aux tournois précédents, est loin d'être garantie.
3. Fabio Borini: on attend toujours l'éclosion de ce talent. A part une bonne moitié de saison avec Swansea en 2011 (en Championship), il n'a toujours rien démontré.
4. Mirante et Marchetti: Sirigu semble assurer du poste de deuxième gardien, donc ces deux joueront le poste du troisième gardien avec Sportiello (sauf si Donnarumma s'invite à la dernière minute).

Finalement, ceux qui ne sont pas assurés de faire partie des 23, même s'ils ont été appellés régulièrement par Conte, mais qui ont vraiment une chance:

1. Bernardeschi: joueur talentueux et jeune, un des rares italiens de la Fiorentina, mais qui souffrira probablement de la présence de El Sharawy et d'Insigne. Ces deux-là semblent avoir le vent en poupe et un troisième ailier pourrait être superflu pour Conte.
2. Soriano et Jorginho: bonnes performances pour les deux milieux de terrain cette année. L'absence de Marchisio et Verratti leur est probablement bénéfique. Ils ont une bonne carte à jouer.
3. Ogbonna: pas toujours titulaire avec la Juventus, Angelo Ogbonna a tenté cette année l'expérience Premier League. En fin de compte, il aura fait une bonne saison, même s'il a eu des hauts et de bas. S'il fait partie du voyage en France, ce sera probablement pour cirer le banc de touche, sauf en cas de blessures.

Voici la liste complète:

Gardiens: Federico Marchetti (Lazio), Antonio Mirante (Bologna), Marco Sportiello (Atalanta)

Défenseurs: Francesco Acerbi (Sassuolo), Davide Astori (Fiorentina), Leonardo Bonucci (Juventus), Armando Izzo (Genoa), Angelo Ogbonna (West Ham), Lorenzo Tonelli (Empoli)

Milieux: Marco Benassi (Torino), Federico Bernardeschi (Fiorentina), Antonio Candreva (Lazio), Danilo Cataldi (Lazio), Daniele De Rossi (Roma), Lorenzo De Silvestri (Sampdoria), Stephan El Shaarawy (Roma), Alessandro Florenzi (Roma), Emanuele Giaccherini (Bologna), Jorginho (Napoli), Marco Parolo (Lazio), Roberto Soriano (Sampdoria), Davide Zappacosta (Torino)

Attaquants: Fabio Borini (Sunderland), Eder (Inter), Ciro Immobile (Torino), Lorenzo Insigne (Napoli), Leonardo Pavoletti (Genoa), Graziano Pelle (Southampton).

Who to lead Italy's attack?

Euro 2016 is fast approaching. Italy will face a scary Belgian team exactly one month from now, on June 13. The final squad will be announced by Antonio Conte live on Italian TV on May 31st.

If you look at the qualifying phase and focus just on the table, you will see zero defeats and a healthy goal difference.It looks on paper like a very good qualifying for Italy; they even qualified with two games to go. However, watch one or two of their matches, and you will quickly how poor the team is. Maybe as poor as Donadoni's team in 2006-2008.

To make things even worse for Conte, two important players won't be available: Marchisio and Verratti. Even if Verratti has never played well for Italy - yet, he is probably the only creative player in this team. But the main problem for Italy is not the midfield, and probably not the defense, it is surely upfront.

Zaza, Eder, Pellè, Immobile, Okaka. These are the players that Conte has been consistently calling up over the past two years:

• Simone Zaza: 9 caps, 1 goal. 4th striker in the Juve hierarchy after Dybala, Mandzukic and Morata. Zaza played most of his matches coming off the bench. He scored this season 8 goals in 23 appearances, across all competitions.
• Eder: 9 caps, 2 goals. From Sampdoria star at the beginning of the season, with 12 goals in 19 Serie A games, to an anonymous squad member at Inter, with just one goal in Serie A since January.
• Graziano Pellè: 11 caps, 4 goals. 10 goals in the Premier League, but only four in the second part of the season.
• Ciro Immobile: 12 caps, 1 goal. Just came back from injury. 5 goals in Serie A prior to that and 2 in La Liga in the first part of the season. 9 goals all in.
• Stefano Okaka: 4 caps, 1 goal. 17 goals this season, 13 in the Jupiler Pro League. It looks like the most prolific Italia striker this season, but in case you haven't noticed, the Jupiler Pro League is the Belgian league...

Another eligible player could be Manolo Gabbiadini, who has been playing in the shadow of Gonzalo Higuain at Napoli all season long, but had little impact. Alessandro Matri, Fabio Quagliarella or Mattia Destro are also candidates, but they all had poor seasons. Mario Balotelli is barely playing and Sebastian Giovinco decided to emigrate to the United States.

So who to lead Italy's attack? There is only one name. A player who has not been called up recently but whose talent is way above all the players mentioned so far combined. It's a player who has been extremely unlucky with injuries in the past few years. It's Giuseppe Rossi.

Giuseppe had to move to lowly Levante in Spain to find playing time and he did very well there. He unfortunately was not able to make them avoid relegation, but he managed to score 6 goals while assisting 2. This goal can remind you of his class:

Rossi has 29 caps for Italy, with 7 goals. He has the experience and the talent to lead Italy's attack. But is he in the right physical condition? Maybe not...

Europa League Qualification - Should it really be AC Milan's objective?

AC Milan is having one of its worst seasons of the Berlusconi era, but they can still qualify for the Europa League (EL). According to Adriano Galliani, this is Milan's objective for the remainder of the season:

It is not true that Milan does not want to participate in Europa League. Qualifying for this tournament is our new objective for the rest of the season.

Having restored some pride by winning last week's derby, Milan is currently 8th with 54 points, 1 point behind the 6th place (last qualifying spot) and 3 behind the 5th. The 4th place is pretty much a done deal for Fiorentina. Hellas Verona, 10th with 53 points, can still dream of a EL spot too. So the battle rages on with two gameweeks to go...

But should AC Milan really make it to the Europa League?

AC Milan has never won the Europa League (fka UEFA Cup and Inter-cities Fairs Cup). Their best finish was reaching the semi-finals twice in 1972 (losing to Tottenham - see below) and 2002 (losing to Borussia Dortmund), but often crashing out much earlier than that.

This tournament has never motivated AC Milan and will never do. AC Milan have the Champions League in their DNA. Who can forget the humiliation against Bordeaux in the quarter finals of the 1996 edition? Having won the first leg 2-0 thanks to goals from Eranio and Baggio, the Milan of Baresi and Maldini capitulated in the second leg at Parc Lescure:

The Europa League is not the Champions League (CL). Excluding matchday revenues and market pool share, a potential winner of the EL can take home up to EUR10m, whereas the CL will offer up to EUR37.4m. Playing on Thursdays can be detrimental to the League form, and even worse, if Milan finishes 6th (the most likely scenario), they will play the Third Qualifying Round, with the first leg scheduled on 31 July 2014, less than a month after the end of the World Cup. The following round, the Play-off round, will follow in late August. This does not only mean that AC Milan will have to start their season very early, it also means that the players will hardly have a break, and the preparation would have to be cut short. Add to that the presence of Clarence Seedorf in Brazil as a pundit for the BBC, and then you start wondering how will Milan be prepared to tackle the 2014-15 Serie A, which starts just two days after the first leg of the Play-off round...

Not playing the Europa League won't be a financial disaster as opposed to not playing the Champions League. Not playing the Europa League will spare them the hassle of mid-week games, without making them lose any appeal in the transfer market. Has a player ever said: I will only stay in this club if they make it to the EL? Or I would only move to that club if they are playing in the EL? No, you only hear this tune when the Champions League is concerned.

AS Roma had a great run in Serie A this year, winning the first 10 games of the season and then finishing in second place. Liverpool had its best Premier League campaign in years, fighting for the title until the very end. Would they have achieved these good performances had they played in the EL? Given the quality and the size of the squad, surely not...

Juventus - Benfica, or the fight for the 4th spot of the UEFA Country Ranking

66.772 versus 61.466. A gap of 5.306 points. This is what is currently separating Italy (4th) and Portugal (5th) in the UEFA Country Coefficients Ranking. It does seem like a large gap, but this ranking takes into account the last 5 seasons only. So when the points of the 2009/2010 season (and the historical Inter treble) go out of the equation next year, Italy will lose an advantage of 5.428 points over Portugal. Simple maths show that this is greater than the current gap...

Antonio Conte has taken the Europa League as seriously as he can, even though he (rightfully) feels that the Champions League is Juventus' "natural habitat". Following the win against Lyon in the quarter finals, he said:

We cared about reaching this objective and hope all of Italy can be happy with it. We represent Italy and that has to bring satisfaction, as there hadn't been a European semi-finalist for six years.

Conte makes a reference to the 2007-08 season, when Cesare Prandelli's Fiorentina made it to the semi-finals only to lose to Rangers on penalties. He is also proud that he is flying the flag for the Italian Football, because he knows very well that Italian clubs have been very poor in the past few years and that the UEFA Country Coefficient is a serious matter. Italians do not care that much about this ranking, and Italy has already lost the 3rd spot and subsequently its allocation of 4 teams in the Champions League.

Being 4th, 5th or 6th, is actually pretty much the same thing, as you would get 3 Champions League slots anyway. But today, instead of being close to catching Germany and to winning back its 3rd spot, Italy is way behind and it's the 4th spot that is in danger.

At last week's draw, Ciro Ferrara decided that it will be an Italy / Portugal clash, and the 4th place will be up for grabs. Juventus must beat Benfica to keep the status quo. Juventus must beat Benfica to play the final in its own beautiful Juventus Stadium. Juventus must beat Benfica to emulate the 1993 generation. Back then, Juventus, led by a fantastic Roberto Baggio (and Antonio Conte), beat Benfica 4-2 in aggregate in the quarter finals on their way to winning the then called UEFA Cup.




Good luck Juve...

Where did El Shaarawy go?

16 December 2012. AC Milan: 4 Pescara: 1. Gameweek 17. Stephan El Shaarawy on the scoresheet for the 14th time of the season, keeping AC Milan hopes of a Champions League berth alive despite a horrible start of the season. Then came the winter break and Stephan scored only twice.

He did ultimately finish top scorer for AC Milan in the 2012-13 season, with 16 goals and 6 assists but ever since that winter break, Stephan seems to have disappeared. Only two goals in the 19 games following the Pescara game. This season, due to a nasty foot injury, he has only played a handful of games, totaling 323 minutes. It includes 2 Champions League playoff games against PSV Einhdoven back in August, when he scored one (vital) goal.

He is about to regain full fitness, and he's expected to be back in the squad sometime in April. But what is worrying is the fact that although they are very good friends off the pitch, Stephan's slump in form coincided with the arrival of Super Mario Balotelli. Was Max Allegri unable to make the most of the two youngsters at the same time, or are they just incompatible?

Looking at their performances with the Squadra Azzurra suggests unfortunately the latter. They played together six times:

• Twice during the World Cup qualifying phase: once against Malta (no need to spend time on the result) and once against the Czech Republic (0-0). It was an insipid performance from Italy.
• Four times in friendlies, the most notable one being a prestigious game against the French. This was the first time El Shaa and Balo were about to link up for the Azzurri. It was a promising start as Stephan scored a well played goal thanks to an assist from Montolivo (after a flick from Balotelli), but Italy lost the game 1-2. Three other friendlies followed, against the Netherlands, Brazil and lowly Haiti and they all resulted in draws with no fireworks from the duo.

The Confed Cup came at a bad time for Stephan. Having been out of form for Milan, he spent most of it on the bench, playing 19 minutes against Brazil and the full 120 minutes in the third place playoff against Uruguay.

Allegri is now gone. Berlusconi thought that the best replacement is the untested Clarence Seedorf. The good news for The Pharaoh is that Seedorf likes to use a 4-2-3-1 formation, which should be ideal for him. Allegri and Prandelli never really used this formation. Stephan can play in his favorite position of left winger, and he can track back as much as he wants. One problem though is that he is yet to play with the January recruits Honda or Taarabt, or even the summer recruit Kaka for this matter.

A fully fit El Shaarawy is surely a big boost on paper for the Rossoneri, but will he become match fit quickly enough? Will he adapt in time to his new coach and teammates? Will he be able to finally link up properly with Balotelli?

Time is running out for El Shaa, and with Immobile and Destro putting in solid performances week in week out in the recent months, his trip to Brazil seems like a distant dream...

Kaka: Should I stay or should I go?

In the summer of 2013, Kaka decided he had enough. He was persistent and tried hard for 4 seasons. He overcame a serious injury and scored 29 goals in 120 appearances, with an average of only 57 minutes per appearance. Add to that 39 assists and the numbers look pretty decent for a midfielder.

But when Kaka left the club where he was a living legend, he had big ambitions. He signed for €65m  and he was dreaming of Ligas, Champions Leagues and Ballons d'Or. And so was Florentino Perez. Kaka wanted to leave his mark at two of the greatest football clubs in the world. He undoubtedly had high hopes, and he had every right to believe he could achieve all of that after six brilliant seasons in Italy. But he failed. He struggled to impose himself as a regular starter and he will never be remembered as a Real Madrid Great.

Kaka had to end his Spanish nightmare. He took a significant pay cut, left from the back door and returned to the San Siro. He was seen by many as the saviour of the worst AC Milan of the Berlusconi era, both on paper and on the pitch. Adriano Galliani thought he had done a good job during that transfer window. But it was a diminished version of the outstanding Kaka that moved back to Milan. Kaka has thus far scored 9 goals and provided 7 assists. Again, the numbers look ok, but AC Milan failed miserably in the Champions League and are 11th in the league, with a whopping 39 point gap separating them from the leaders, Juventus. Although Kaka is not solely responsible for Milan woes, he has failed to light up Italian football like he did in his first spell. Kaka has lost his 'mojo'.

Galliani revealed this week that Kaka has a clause in his contract that allows him to walk away from the San Siro at the end of season as AC Milan won't make it to the Champions League. The player himself stated that he is interested in playing in the MLS:

"In future I'd like to play in America. At the end of the season I'll talk to Adriano Galliani to understand his ideas and those of the club. If I were to leave, then I would like a transfer to the United States."

If Milan were to continue their austerity cure and sign the Constants and Birsas of this world, then Kaka will surely be missed. If on the other hand, there is a cash injection from a wealthy new owner (or most probably a co-owner), then the MLS is a better option for both Kaka and Milan.

Kaka, who single-handedly brought home the 2007 Champions League, two years after the humiliation in Istanbul, might never play in this competition again. He won't play the World Cup in his homeland either. What a shame!

It seems that Kaka is today seriously contemplating his future, but whether he stays or he leaves, the 2007 Ballon d'Or we admired disappeared from the game long ago.

Ciao Maestro. it's been a pleasure watching you...