France – Italy: A Renaissance Bests A Revolution (1-3)

Luciano Spalletti needed to show direction after a terrible summer. Didier Deschamps brought the guillotine, but Italy’s rebirth into the game could lay the foundation for what they can become.

Tactical analysis and match report by Joel Parker.

We decided to make this article free to read. If you want to support our work, consider taking a subscription.

How does one make a recovery after a bad competition campaign? With Didier Deschamps and Luciano Spalletti staying in their respective roles, the answers will have to come from the tactical perspective.

It seems bizarre to label the semi-finalists of the EUROs as one of the tournament’s disappointments, but France’s inability to score was one of the big talking points. “If you’re getting bored, watch another game.” Deschamps would proclaim in a Munich press conference, after their penalty shootout win in the quarter-finals over Portugal. The problem for France is that the sacrifice of enjoyment is supposed to hand them success, the peak of 2018 has not been reached and the groans only get louder when the team is not getting results.

Whereas the French were able to stumble by, the Italians never got going in Germany. On the same pitch where Marco Materazzi hit the deck and Fabio Grosso won the penalty shootout in 2006, Italy produced one of its worst competition displays against Switzerland eighteen years on. Bridges have been burned between Spalletti and players like Manuel Locatelli, as well as playing a direct 4-3-3 formation – what Spalletti is renowned for – through his squad selections: is this really the right direction for Italian national football?

Deschamps included some fresh faces in his first line-up since the semi-final versus eventual winners Spain. Jonathan Clauss, Youssouf Fofana and Bradley Barcola got limited minutes at the EUROs but all started in this game. Bayern Munich’s Michael Olise made his international debut, alongside the usual attacking core of Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappé.

Spalletti has stuck to his 3-5-2 formation, a path that all Italian national team coaches seem to follow, but this came with a twist. Lorenzo Pellegrini was behind striker Mateo Retegui, making this a 3-5-1-1 system. In the summer, Sandro Tonali was unavailable due to his betting ban whilst Samuele Ricci did not make the final squad, but both made up a midfield completed by Davide Frattesi.

Forceful French strike early

After a tricky summer, Giovanni Di Lorenzo was one of the many Italian players with a reputation to restore, but France delivered early humiliation. As the Napoli captain delved on the ball, Barcola picked his pocket and charged through on Gianluigi Donnarumma’s goal. The keeper spread one way but Barcola blasted the ball above him for France to take the lead after twelve seconds.

An embarrassing possession breakdown for Italy, after which they still maintained the ball – and generated an amazing chance for Frattesi after Andrea Cambiaso connected with Pellegrini’s cross, but Frattesi’s header on the squared pass hit the bar and Retegui missed the target. However, the potency and the threat still belonged to France, which stemmed from their attacker’s ability to carry the ball.

2^nd minute: Deep French buildup versus the Italian high press. As Olise dropped towards the ball, Griezmann moved into his position and took Tonali away from the center. With Calafiori bypassed, Olise could rotate inside and his carrying forced Ricci and Frattesi to bunch together. Due to his retention, France created a three-versus-two on the left side and although Frattesi recovered his position, Barcola dribbled around Cambiaso to enter the box.

How they engineered their box entries came from moments after Italy lost the ball or France capitalizing on their opponent being caught out between its high pressing phase (man-orientated 4-4-2 shape with high center-midfielders on the French double pivot) and its medium-to-low block state, a deep 5-3-2 formation with Andrea Cambiaso dropping into the defensive line. Olise dropping from his high right position saw Riccardo Calafiori follow up and Griezmann pushing ahead to create gaps in the middle, as Tonali followed. With Frattesi dropping into the center, Barcola had plenty of space to attack from the left: the first occasion saw Barcola beat Cambiaso but his low ball was straight at the goalkeeper, the second saw a neat interchange with Mbappé and his cutback was close to refinding his former PSG teammate, but Alessandro Bastoni’s boot took the ball away from the striker.

Dribbles from Olise were the most effective way to encourage Italy’s midfield towards the center, but piercing through the defensive line proved a more difficult challenge. Space was available for Theo Hernández and Clauss upon lateral passes, but the Italian back five maintaining its position meant that the space was only available in front of them, not between or behind. As the lateral attacks continued, Griezmann and Mbappé left their central positions to assist, but France struggled to gain central control in possession and transitional attacks could not be relied upon to maintain their early momentum.

The roaming role for Calafiori

Italy showed a clear objective in possession. Their 3-5-1-1 formation formed very aggressive positioning beside the French double pivot. Tonali and Frattesi pushed high on Fofana and N’Golo Kanté, with Pellegrini positioned between to make a three-versus-two. This diamond-like center was held by Ricci at the base, although having a lot of space to defend on the transition, he was comfortable maintaining possession and Tonali was the most flexible of the midfielders, situationally dropping towards Ricci from a central spot.

25^th minute: How Italy was able to isolate the fullback to switch to the opposite channel. Tonali rotated inside with the ball as Pellegrini pushed forward and Retegui moved towards the ball side to drag the center-back away from that side of the field. With the prospect of Frattesi receiving the ball, Hernández could not directly encounter Cambiaso, increasing Tonali’s chances of completing the switch.

By this time in the game, Calafiori had limited his usual underlapping or third-man runs from the center-back spot. If he were to move, it would be to maintain width as Federico Dimarco moved into the striker spot – a classic Internazionale rotation. With the central overload produced, Olise and Barcola sat in narrow spots to maintain compactness, but Italy had the mechanics in place to produce switches to their wing-backs holding the width, usually coming from one of the midfielders dropping towards the pivot space to make the pass.

This was a reliable route to get the ball into the box and on the half-hour mark, Italy ignited in fabulous fashion. Calafiori moved next to Ricci and Pellegrini dropped between the center-midfielders to switch the play to Cambiaso. The Juve wing-back dropped inside and Dimarco was free on the far side to connect with the bouncing ball. Tonali dropped away from Clauss and Ibrahima Konaté to creatively heel the ball over the two before Dimarco produced an incredible volley into the top right corner.

From the equalizer, the roles in the Italian buildup had changed. When the ball was with Donnarumma, positioned next to Ricci was Calafiori and Dimarco was more left fullback than wing-back. Now Italy had transitioned to a 2-4-3-1 in possession, with some fluid rotations throughout. When Ricci dropped between the center-backs, Tonali could move higher up and Calafiori moved between the left-back and center spots to free Dimarco or enable Bastoni to carry up the field as well.

41^st minute: Rotations within the Italian buildup, after the half-hour mark. From a 2-4-3-1 shape, Calafiori adopted more of a roaming role between the midfield lines. As he dropped between Barcola and Griezmann, the lane opened for Frattesi and Calafiori made a run behind Fofana to make a two-versus-one between against Saliba. The position of Hernández denied the channel pass and circulation continued.

The fluid movements of Calafiori did not stop there. When the ball moved towards Di Lorenzo, Calafiori followed between the midfield lines and appeared as the free man between the French players. A vertical pass to either Frattesi or Tonali opened the space for Calafiori to move up the chain, creating a two-versus-one against one of the center-backs alongside Pellegrini, build upon these foundations and Italy could create these advantages more consistently.

Frat summer

Rotations continued into the second period, with Italy taking up different attacking combinations on transitions. France tried to utilize their wingers to perform a more effective high press but had not anticipated Bastoni underlapping to become the free player against their man-to-man arrangement. This sparked one of Italy’s best moves of the game, Tonali dribbling around Kanté down the left channel and cutting back into a zone of four Italian attackers on the edge of the box. Frattesi’s dummy run moved Theo Hernández away from the fullback spot and both Retegui and Cambiaso were in the vacant space, but substitute Giacomo Raspadori’s decision to shoot wasted a great opportunity.

The Italian passmap can see Calafiori transforming the 3-5-1-1 formation into a 2-4-3-1 in possession. Calafiori joined Ricci in the double pivot, whilst Tonali and Frattesi pushed forward.    

Italy was not creating loads of opportunities, but their rotations and the availability of the switch meant that they were creating much more of a threat. Looseness from Fofana sparked a counter from Tonali and Retegui’s ball past William Saliba found Frattesi, a low shot beat Mike Maignan.

Off the ball, Spalletti’s team remained in a 5-3-2 formation with Raspadori and Retegui in the front line. Deschamps added Ousmane Dembélé to the mix and tried to draw out space through Clauss underlapping to pin Calafiori, so Dembélé had space to dribble inside of Dimarco. A tackle from Bastoni led to the winger awkwardly landing on Calafiori, so the Arsenal center-back had to be replaced by Alessandro Buongiorno a few minutes later. Spalletti had already added Destiny Udogie for Frattesi, to provide further coverage on Dembélé down the left, but it did not stop the winger from getting behind the defensive line on the transition, only for his ball across goal to be cleared.

Theo Hernández also created a flowing move to gain entry into the box, Griezmann free as Ricci had to engage and Mbappé’s backheel connected the third man run from the left back, but Buongiorno hacked the ball away. The French held more of the ball at this stage, and both Griezmann and Mbappé tried to make events happen, but Italy’s stubborn defending in the center kept the shots to a minimum.

Before the game could reach its last quarter, another chance for Cambiaso to switch to the opposite flank opened up with Udogie holding width and Dimarco between the fullback and center-back. Udogie moved inside onto his right foot and the space between the two center-backs, and substitute Manu Koné watching the ball, was perfect ground for a late arrival into the box. Raspadori’s touch was heavy, but enough to win the foot race against Saliba and slot the ball past the goalkeeper. A conclusive third, to get their Nations League campaign off to a roaring start.

Takeaways

Twenty-two seconds into their EURO opener, Dimarco’s carelessness from a throw-in led to Albania scoring the quickest goal in the history of the competition. It seemed like nothing had changed less than a minute into this game, yet the Italians rallied impressively to produce the flexible football (for brief periods) we had been promised from Spalletti.

After a difficult early period, Italy was able to apply a very strong game plan, create the overload in the center of the pitch and switch the ball from one channel to the next. The rotations may have been led by Calafiori, but Ricci and Tonali proved how much their presence was missed in the summer. France lacked ideas or “the light went out” as Deschamps described after the game. But this is a script not too dissimilar for a French team that is under a lot of pressure.

Use the arrows to scroll through all available match plots. Click to enlarge.
Check the match plots page for plots of other matches.