Marcello Lippi and His Azzurri Disgrace Italy

It was pathetic. It was shameful. It was disgraceful. Before denouncing Marcello Lippi for his moronic tactical and player selections for the 2010 World Cup, it has to be said that the lack of commitment, determination and urgency from Italy against Slovakia was frankly humiliating.

Though many of the players that donned the famous Italy shirt—and so disgracefully at that—against Slovakia should have not been there in the first place, what is so disheartening is that none of them gave it their all. Not one. It was only the most crucial game for Italy at the biggest sporting event in the world, yet one would have been hard-pressed to know this from watching the Azzurri.

The players seemed completely devoid of motivation and any desire whatsoever to make their country proud and achieve a positive result. They lethargically went through the motions in Johannesburg's Ellis Park with next to no movement off the bal,l and when they had the ball, they passed it around at a rather agonising pedestrian pace. It was simply awful to watch and embarrassing as a fellow Italian national. The final whistle really could not come soon enough.

But, the extraordinary lack of motivation and commitment by the Italian players was just one problem. Despite how disgraceful the players were, Italy's dramatic downfall can be attributed to one person, their now former coach Marcello Lippi.

After Italy's humiliating Euro 2008 performance, which included many of the same players that won the World Cup just two years before, it was clear that significant changes had to be made to the Azzurri ahead of the 2010 World Cup if Italy were going to be contenders.

However, soon after Lippi returned to La Nazionale in August 2008, it became clear that he did not intend to make the necessary changes needed to make Italy strong again.

Instead, he elected to continue favouring those players that he was close to and who had helped him win the world cup in 2006. Therefore, it was the likes of Cannavaro, Gattuso, Zambrotta, and Iaquinta that would again be relied upon by Lippi to form the crux of his Italian team as they started their journey to South Africa.

The problem was that these players were simply not good enough anymore as evidenced by the limp displays of Cannavaro, Gattuso, Zambrotta, and Iaquinta during Italy’s failed South African campaign.

Lippi did not choose the best players available to him, as any national team coach should. He denied the likes of Cassano, Balotelli, and Miccoli any chance at all even though these three players are arguably three of the top players currently in Italy. Not even Guiseppe Rossi, who was under consideration by Lippi, was good enough despite being the only positive highlight from Italy's disastrous Confederations Cup campaign last year.

Italy may not be blessed with the quality players that so often in the past it has boasted, but there are enough Italian players available for international duty today that would have formed a much more competitive side compared to the pitiful one put together by Lippi. They just needed to be given a chance.

Lippi has much to answer for regarding his shocking player selections and omissions. However, it is not just with the personnel that Lippi got it drastically wrong. As has been clearly evident in Italy’s three matches in South Africa, Lippi headed to the World Cup with no real clear tactical plan—at least not one that worked.

In all three matches, Lippi continually changed the personnel and the system of play in a bid to turn the Azzurri’s fading hopes, none of which worked. Such an instance begs the question as to what exactly has Lippi been doing for the last two and a half years.

Marcello Lippi is the one solely to be blamed for Italy’s calamitous world cup campaign. The writing was on the wall before the World Cup as he was the subject of much criticism due to his stubborn and moronic player selections and tactics. In the end, the critics were right and Lippi was wrong.

For the Azzurri, it is time for a new era that cannot start soon enough. Though Italian fans will forever be thankful to Marcello Lippi and Fabio Cannavaro for the 2006 triumph, it is with good riddance that we bid farewell to these two along with a host of other players whose time has been clearly up for some time.