Round of 16 | Switzerland vs Italy | Germany vs Denmark

Ndoye seems like a player who always looks dangerous but rarely ever scores or assists.
 
Donnarumma has had a good Euros.
 
Italy have been abysmal.

Not much to change it on the bench either.

Would certainly put Retegui on for Scammaca.
 
Nicely struck free kick. These Swiss would give England a tough time.
 
Chiellini.
Bonucci this year
Verratti and Insigne that decided to play in the retirement league
Jorginho and Immobile have dropped off a lot as well
Spinazzola always injuried.
Oh wow, that's a lot.
 
Honestly, if we (Scotland) had gone through and had actually put in effort, we might have been able to give Italy a game.
 
Not scared by Suisse. Half of their players play in Serie A, I know their value and they are not that good..

In a combined XI Italy would be present with almost all their players:

Donnarumma > Sommer
Di Lorenzo > Stergiou
Mancini < Akanji
Bastoni > Rodriguez
Darmian > Schar
Barella > Xhaka
Cristante < Freuler
Fagioli > Aebischer
El Shaarawy > Rieder
Chiesa > Ndoye
Scamacca > Embolo

+ we have Spalletti who is a top coach.

I expect to win honestly.
Xhaka and Schar better. Xhaka has been one of the best mids this season.

Embolo in International Tournaments is great. Shaqiri off the bench in these tournaments is a monster.
 
Mad to think that around 98-2000 Italy could choose from Baggio, Zola, Del Piero, Totti, Inzaghi, Vieri, Signori, Montella, Chiesa up front with great depth in midfield and defense to back that up and this is what they are now.

Especially given there were multiple other countries around with equally stacked squads.
Might be me and my nostalgia talking, but I feel like the quality of quite a few national teams has gone down a lot over the last 10-15 years.
 
Donnarumma just pulled a Jens Lehmann (vs Drogba) :lol:
 
Italy look like they're playing their first pre-season friendly.
 
Who retired after 2021 that caused this drop off? Chiellini? Surely a few others?
Chiesa got injured, we fecked up the WC qualifiers(ironically we beat the swiss from pillar to post twice and failed to beat them with Jorginho missing penalties in both games) and lost all confidence. Then Mancini quit on us for Saudi money. Spalletti has been working with these guys for less than a year and the team is bereft of any confidence at the moment

We lost Verratti and the Bonucci-Chiellini duo, though our CB options are still great, but it seems we lack their leadership more.

Also no more Insigne, who was our main attacking playmaker
 
Spain completely took Italy’s confidence. We’ve looked like complete garbage since then and don’t deserve to be in this tournament if we’re going to continue to play like this.
 
This Italy-side is quite poor, their worst tournament-edition since when?

Not impressed with their squad either.
 
Spalletti is the main culprit. It's mainly a fitness problem imho.
I understand our players are pretty poor and we're not as good as we were in 2021 but for sure we should be better than them.

Aebischer, Ndoye and Freuler have looked fantastic so far and play for Serie A team Bologna, how it's possible Inter or Juventus players look much shitter.

Our players just don't run and don't press. They all seem dead.
 
Italy are an embarrassment. That squad is just terrible. What has happened to their football school?
 
Having to stay on the pitch, watching mighty Switzerland toy with them, is a harsher penalty than a red card.
And to think if fecking Fulkrug didn't score, we'd be looking like our 1982 side right now smashing the germans :wenger: