2025 reimagined: What if… Luciano Spalletti had stayed back as Italy coach
Luciano Spalletti could've enforced those tactical patterns given the paucity of technical geniuses.
It is very well to say that the Spalletti ship has sailed - it sailed straight into an iceberg of Erling Haaland proportions in the sorry 3-0 loss to Norway, after which the professorial tactician was so dismayed he declared his own departure. What if former Italy coach Luciano Spalletti had not given up on the national team in its FIFA World Cup qualification bid, and inadvertently brought Gennaro Gattuso into the mix?
It is very well to say that the Spalletti ship has sailed – it sailed straight into an iceberg of Erling Haaland proportions in the sorry 3-0 loss to Norway, after which the professorial tactician was so dismayed he declared his own departure. Italy play to plans, under geeky coaches marshalling gorgeous technicians at World Cups. Flair tends to be optional, at the discretion of the personnel; parked buses once second nature. But now, they go rumbling under buses like Jack in Speed. Unlike Jack of Titanic, they are mystifyingly alive still, hovering around jagged edges of icebergs, scoring an uncharacteristic 18-goal glut under Gattuso. But no guarantees it won’t sink against Wales and Northern Ireland, like they did to Sweden in 2018 and North Macedonia in 2022.
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