Yahoo Sports FEATURE | Italy’s three most important players at EURO 2024
Luciano Spalletti’s Italy will open their EURO 2024 campaign later today, when they take on Albania in Dortmund. The reigning champions are drafted into a rather tricky group and a win today would be of optimum importance for the Azzurri, who haven’t quite been deemed as the favourites for the competition.
Three players though, will be vital for Spalletti at the tournament and their performances will set the tone for Italy fare at the European championships.
Bastoni is arguably one of the best defenders in the game and while he wasn’t a regular part of the side that won the EUROS in 2021, he now has a huge role to play in the team’s performance and he will take forward the legacy of the Azzurri backline from the era of Leonardo Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini.
Both aren’t around anymore and Bastoni’s role would be to carry the backline and the defence ahead, being one of the best in his position in Europe. With Spalletti also likely to use a back three, it is a setup that suits Bastoni and brings the best out of his ball-playing abilities and ability to carry the ball into midfield. Those traits will be vital for the Azzurri.
Nicolo Barella
Just like Bastoni, Barella is one of the best players in the world in his position and is coming into the tournament at the back of a brilliant season, where he won the Serie A with Inter.
What Barella offers more than any other Italian midfielder is not just quality, but versatility. He is predominantly an advanced number eight on the right side of the attack but also can operate deeper as a number eight and even as a number six, while providing a lot of leadership and experiencing of winning titles and coming up with key performances at the highest level.
Like Bastoni, he is a part of the Inter spine at Italy that could prove defining for them in the tournament.
Even during the previous edition of the EUROs, Italy had a striker problem that they somehow managed to negate. But that remained an issue for quite a while till last year and it is only Scamacca’s impressive form for Atalanta this season that has given Azzurri fans hope of extinguishing that crisis.
His performance at Anfield will be remembered for a while and he was a pivotal figure in their Europa League title win too, showing just complete a centre-forward he can be. While his stint at West Ham didn’t go as per plan, he has stepped things up at La Dea and has become a hope for Italy.
In the friendlies, he showed that he can drop deep to help conduction of play and his complete abilities can set the tone for Spalletti’s side.
Kaustubh Pandey I GIFN
