Euro 2012 Preview: 10 Things to Know About Italy and Its Squad

The Italian National Soccer Team has gone through a lot over the last two years.

Since taking over for Marcello Lippi after the disaster that was the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Cesare Prandelli has made some definite changes to the Azzurri.  After an unbeaten run through the Euro 2012 qualifiers, Italy has dropped their last two friendlies.  Coupled with the fact that one of the Euro qualifiers against their strongest competition on paper, Serbia, was abandoned after seven minutes due to fan violence, there are some who still aren't sure exactly what this team really does bring to the field.

Who are the Azzurri as we head into the European Championships?  Here are 10 main points for the team as we head into the summer.

Gianluigi Buffon Is Still the Best in the World

Simply put, Gianluigi Buffon is the reason there are four stars on Italy's crest instead of three.

During the 2006 World Cup in Germany, he established himself as the best goalkeeper in the world, bar none.  Italy conceded only two goals the entire tournament, with Buffon maintaining a 453-minute scoreless streak.  The two goals he did allow were on an own goal and a penalty kick. In both the semis and the final he made incredible one-handed saves in extra time that prevented what would have been sure game-winners.  His individual performance earned him a spot on the tournament All-Star team and the Yashin award, and the Azzurri lifted their fourth World Cup.

Four years later, however, the World Cup story for Buffon was very different.  He injured his back during pregame warmups for the group stage opener against Paraguay.  He tried to power through the injury but was forced to give way to Federico Marchetti at halftime.  Buffon was reduced to huddling on the end of the bench with fellow veteran Gennaro Gattuso, urging on his team as they crashed out of the tournament.

It took Buffon until January to return from the injury he suffered in South Africa, and the effects of the injury in the 2010-11 Serie A season caused many to wonder if he had lost his magic.

The 2011-12 season so far has showed that the reports of his demise have been premature.  He has made dazzling saves this season for Juventus, and has played a large part in Juventus' undefeated season.

One interesting statistic: Juventus has conceded three penalty kicks this season—and Buffon has kept two of them out.  Buffon is entering his first major tournament as Italy's official captain, and will be looking to make up for the disappointment of two years ago.

If the past season has done anything, it has sent the strikers of Europe a message: with Buffon in goal, the way is shut once more.

Andrea Pirlo Still Pulls the Strings

Gianluigi Buffon's injury wasn't the only catastrophe to befall Italy two years ago in South Africa.  The injury to Andrea Pirlo probably hurt even more.  He suffered a leg injury in a friendly just days before the tournament, and missed the first two games.  During those games the Azzurri's attack simply looked lost.  There was no creativity, no touch.  The ball was simply brought down the wing and then sent into the box, hoping that it would hit the head of a man dressed in blue.  They scored only two goals in those games, and neither of them were from open play—one came on a corner, the other on a penalty.

Pirlo was introduced into the final group game against Slovakia in the 56th minute, and the Italian attack immediately changed.  Where there had been nothing, there was suddenly life.  I hesitate to use the word "resuscitate" after the events of the weekend at White Hart Lane, but it's the perfect word to describe what Pirlo did to the Italian attack.  They doubled their goal count, with both scores coming in open play.  Had it not been for a bad defensive mistake and a debatable offside call, Italy could have drawn the match and moved on to the knockout round.

Like Buffon, injuries during the 2010-11 season caused many people to wonder whether Pirlo's career was in decline.  His longtime club, AC Milan, thought so little of him that they let him sign as a free agent with Juventus.  Pirlo has repaid Juve's faith in them by having one of the best seasons of his career.  An example: in Saturday's 5-0 thrashing of Fiorentina, Pirlo made 139 passes and completed an insane 96 percent of them, along with 27 accurate long balls.  The man they call l'architetto can still do more with one touch than most other players can do with three.  Pirlo is one of the most underrated players in world soccer, and he is the linchpin of the Italian attack.  Without him in the midfield, everything else breaks down.

The Central Defense Is Solid

Since time immemorial the hallmark of Italy's soccer culture has been defense.  Serie A is always vaunted as the best defensive league in Europe, and a striker who succeeds there must show true quality to do so.

Italy has taken advantage of such defensive quality by becoming one of the most difficult teams to break down.  In the last year they have not given up more than two goals in any game. As has been said before, when they won the World Cup in Germany, they did not allow a team to score against them in open play.  Four years ago at Euro 2008, they were the only team that held the eventual champions, Spain, goalless.

The spine of this stalwart defense is the backbone of the best defense in the Serie A: Juventus' trio of center-backs Giorgio Chiellini, Andrea Barzagli and Leonardo Bonucci.  Chiellini is a throwback to the physical, hard-tackling Italian defenders of yore and a three-time Serie A Defender of the Year.

Barzagli is one of the most decorated players on the current squad: he has won the 2004 Under-21 European Championship, the bronze medal in the '04 Olympics and was on the vaunted 2006 World Cup squad.  Bonucci, the youngest and least experienced of the three, may have the highest ceiling of them all, with exceptional skill at distributing from the back and keying the attack.

The three have often seen the field together this season for Juve, either as a three-man defense or with Chiellini shifted out to his original left-back position.  The trio has been the bedrock of a defense that has given up only 17 goals this year, the fewest in Serie A and joint second-fewest in Europe.  It is extremely unlikely that the three will be on the field together under Prandelli, but the protection that they give Buffon is essential for a team that could be somewhat uncertain offensively.

A Great Set of Two-Way Fullbacks

Center-backs are not the only element of defense.  The fullbacks available to Prandelli also take upon themselves the Italian ethos of solid defense, and on top of that, the two men that have solidified the starting jobs on the wing have proven to be excellent two-way threats.

On the right, Napoli man Christian Maggio has shown the same danger on the wing as he has for club manager Walter Mazzarri.  He doesn't play as a traditional right back in Mazzarri's 3-4-2-1 setup, but has displayed great ability both defensively and offensively.  His wing-back position in Napoli makes him dangerous coming up from the wing and serving the ball to the strikers in the box.  He has some goal-scoring chops of his own too, scoring 15 since joining Napoli in 2008 and nine the season before alone with Sampdoria.

The other side of the field is covered by Domenico Criscito.  Criscito came very close to scoring in the February 29 friendly against the USA.  Only a great save by Tim Howard prevented from opening his account for the Azzurri.  He isn't the goal-scoring threat that Maggio is, but he provides good service up the wing and covers his ground well in defense.  Criscito and Maggio have successfully pushed other backs like Ignazio Abate and Federico Balzaretti to the fringes of the race to start for Italy this summer.  Combined with the trio of center-halves, these men form a solid wall before the Italian goal, an especially important element of the team with a tournament-opening game against defending champions Spain looming in Poland.

We Aren't Sure Where the Goals Will Be Coming From

I've put a picture of Mario Balotelli up on this slide because he is quite possibly the most talented of the strikers that may be on Cesare Prandelli's roster come June.

One of the biggest questions in the run up to the European championship is who will score the goals for this team.  Prandelli's most productive striker during qualifying for the Euros, Antonio Cassano (six goals), will be unavailable due to a heart condition.  His most frequent strike partner, Giuseppe Rossi, suffered a serious knee injury early in the 2011-12 La Liga season and will likely lose the race to be fit by the time the tournament begins.  These injuries have left Prandelli with many unproven options for his front line.

In last month's friendly against the US, four different strikers got time on the field.  Expect more of the same in the upcoming May/June friendlies against Luxembourg and Russia as Prandelli attempts to find his best combination of strikers.

The options are numerous: Balotelli, Giampaolo Pazzini, Sebastian Giovinco, Alessandro Matri, Fabio Borini, Pablo Osvaldo and even less obvious ones such as two-time defending Serie A capocannoniere Antonio Di Natale, Alberto Gilardino or Fabio Quagliarella.  The most talented is likely Balotelli, but he was dropped from the roster for the US match when he was sent off in a Premier League match, and Prandelli has made it clear that he and Osvaldo, who were both dropped for the same reason, had to reign themselves in to gain back their places on he squad.  Whoever he choses, there is no doubt that this is likely the biggest decision the Italy manager will have to make before the tournament.

A Younger, New-Look Squad

One of the biggest issues from the World Cup two years ago was Marcello Lippi's squad selection.  Of the 23 players Lippi brought to South Africa, nine of them were older than 30—although two of them were goalkeepers.  Nine of them had played in the 2006 Cup.  This over-reliance on older players affected the quality of play, and excluded potential difference makers like Giuseppe Rossi from the side.  The inclusion of the legendary Fabio Cannavaro was particularly ill-advised.  After missing Euro 2008 with an injury, the most capped player in Italian history had wanted to end his international career with one last big tournament, and Lippi obliged him, to the detriment of the team.  Cannavaro was directly responsible for at least two of the five goals Italy conceded in the group games.

Prandelli's player selection is palpable evidence that he is not willing to fall into the same trap.  Only three players from the most recent Italy squad are over 30—and two of them are goalkeepers, the one position that tends to get better with age (three other players are 30 on the dot).  Only one other player in the last year was 30 or older when Prandelli called him up to the squad.  In the same time frame 13 players have been called up who are 25 or younger.  Prandelli seems committed to this youth movement almost to a fault—34 year old Antonio Di Natale hasn't been called up at all in the Prandelli era despite having led Serie A in goals the last two years running.

Youth Doesn't Eliminate Experience

Italy's youth movement does not mean that this is an inexperienced side.  Four players from the 2006 Champions (Buffon, Pirlo, Barzagli and Daniele De Rossi) were in the most recent Italian side.  The same quartet also played in Euro 2008.  Eleven of them were on the roster during the most recent World Cup.  Four of them have been capped at least 50 times at the international level, and two more have at least 20 caps.

At the club level, the players Prandelli has called up over the past calendar year have won winner's medals in the Bundesliga (1), La Liga (3), Serie B (3), Serie A (14), Coppa Italia (13), Supercoppa Italiana (13), Carling Cup (1), FA Cup (1), UEFA Cup (1), Champions League (7), UEFA Supercup (3) and Club World Cup (4).  Internationally, five players called up in the last year were on the 2006 World Cup squad, four were on the U-21 European Champions in 2004, and four players were on the U-21 team that won Bronze at the 2004 Athens Olympics.  That's a lot of big-game experience—experience that will serve this team well this summer.

They Are Highly Motivated

The picture you see to the left shows members of the Slovakian national team mobbing Kamil Kopunek after he scored the goal that sealed Italy's doom two years ago at Ellis Park in Johannesburg.

It was one of the greatest humiliations in the history of Italian soccer.  It was the first time in 17 competitions that Italy had failed to win at least one game at the World Cup, and only the third time in history that a defending champion had crashed out of the tournament in the group stage.

In a group that contained world minnow New Zealand and an unheralded Slovakian side, Italy only managed four goals and conceded five.  Injuries had a lot to do with it—had Buffon and Pirlo been in the side, the results could have been quite different.

But Marcello Lippi's mismanagement also had a lot to do with the defeat, and the players underachieved as a group.  Both the players on the 2010 roster and those who were not will be out to reclaim Italy's place of honor in international soccer, a place that—the '06 championship notwithstanding—has been called into question ever since the calciopoli scandal rocked Italy six years ago.

Their Draw Is Favorable

Italy probably got the best draw they could possibly have asked for when the groups were announced on December 2.  They aren't in the easiest group—that's Group A—but Group C is a great spot to be in for several reasons.

First off, they avoided Group B—the Group of Death.  The four teams in that group are all ranked in the top 11 of the FIFA world rankings.  Despite the fact that Italy has to play Spain—the defending European and World champion and No. 1 ranked team in the world—Group C is a good position when you look further along the line.  Spain being in the group is actually an advantage in that Italy would not have to play them again until the final, assuming they both get there.

Group C also carries another advantage: Italy does not face the prospect of playing one of the Group of Death teams until the semifinals.  Depending on where they finish in the group they would face either the winner or runner up of Group D—a group populated by four teams Italy has enjoyed success against in the past.

The Azzurri are the odds-on favorites to advance to the quarterfinals.  Provided they don't crash out for two major tournaments in a row, there is a very good chance based on the draw that Italy can think of the semifinals—and maybe more—as a realistic possibility.

Once Again They Are the Underdogs

The Azzurri seem to perform better when the expectations are lower.  No one expected them to make the run that they made in Germany in 2006 after calciopoli rocked some of the top clubs in Italy.  The 1982 triumph in Spain was also after a Serie A betting scandal and a time of depressed expectations, especially after their lackluster performance in the opening round of the tournament.

For whatever reason, Italy seems to perform better in major tournaments when they are not expected to compete for the title.  When they are expected to play well and contend, they often fall flat.

The historical parallels don't just reach to the most recent World Cup wins.  Italy's lone European championship, won in 1968, came after an embarrassing exit from the 1966 World Cup.  Just as in 2010, the Italians were expected to play well and progress from a fairly passable group, but were unable to produce results.  Of particular coincidence is the fact that both teams ended up dropping points to countries that had no professional league—North Korea in '66 and New Zealand in '10.  Two years after the '66 crash-out, the Azzurri were holding the European Cup.

Another factor driving down expectations has been the drop in the general regard for the Italian game in the world soccer community caused by the 2006 calciopoli match-fixing scandal.  Italian clubs have won the UEFA Champions League twice since the scandal, but Serie A's overall performance in the continental competitions has been so lackluster that Italy dropped in the UEFA club coefficient and lost a Champions League place.  The scandal was indeed a crippling blow to Italian soccer, and that general attitude depresses the expectations on these Azzurri even more.

Between the history of expectations, a fairly favorable draw, and an all-around talented roster, I believe the Italians are primed to make a deep run into Euro 2012.  I would not be surprised to find them in the semifinals come the end of June.