Once upon a time during international football matches, there was always a rant against the referee. A little for the unbridled cheering that distinguishes us, a little for the inadequacy of the race directors at the time, it was easy for us Italians to vent our anger and frustration on the man dressed in black.
Today it’s not that simple anymore. After the very unpleasant episode of Byron Moreno, there are hardly any more inadequate referees. And so we had to blame our failures on bad luck, the players’ inadequacy, or the national team’s coach.
The latter figure, on the contrary, in recent decades has assumed an ever greater media weight. If once he was a straightforward recruiter with fairly limited responsibilities, today he has become the savior of the homeland or its definitive graveyard, as the case may be.
Suffice it to look at the recent parables of Prandelli and Conte, at times hailed as gods on earth and at other times harshly criticized. But the list of coaches who sat on the bench during the Azzurri matches is very long. There he is.
If you want to deepen the subject, you can read our articles about it:
• Five memorable matches in the World Cup won by Italy
• Five elements of Italy’s squad at the 2006 World Cup that you don’t know what happened to
them • The five of Italy’s biggest stadiums and their history
• Five unforgettable matches for Marcello Lippi’s Juventus
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