Meticulous Machinations and Spanish Unease: Previewing Italy vs. Spain

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

Antonio Conte is so meticulous – or paranoid – that he only lets a close core of his coaching staff watch his tactical sessions with his players. He knows that the one great strength of what is generally recognised as the weakest Italy squad in decades is his acumen. He will have a plan for Spain in the last 16, and Spain will be worried. Although La Roja beat Italy 4-0 in the Euro 2012 final, the sense still lurks in Spain that Italy are their bogey team; that Spanish flair is somehow susceptible to Italy's defensive machinations.

That feeing is what lies behind the paradox that, in Euro 2008, when Spain won a tournament for the first time after decades of flattering to deceive, the game that was held up as key was the one they hadn't won: the 0-0 draw against Italy in the quarter-final, from which they progressed on penalties. It was probably their worst performance of the tournament, an edgy, disjointed display. Italy weren't much good either, but Spain did what the Italians had previously always done to them: they came through without playing well.

Three times previously the sides had met at major championships; always Italy had found a way to progress. A glance at the Spanish headlines the next day made clear how psychologically important that win was. "Spain have banished their ghosts," read the headline in El Pais. "Casillas breaks the spell," roared El Mundo Deportivo."Adios, damned curse, adios!" screamed El Mundo.

The two sides have actually met 11 times since Italy beat Spain at the 1994 World Cup; La Roja have lost only once, in a friendly in August 2011. They drew in the group stage of the last Euros before Spain's emphatic win in the final, yet something of that old apprehension still lingers. Spain's manager, Vicente del Bosque, admitted that his players sat in silence after realising what the defeat to Croatia signified. "We have time to analyse what the game against Italy means," he said. "We're still in the competition, we are not on the path we wanted to be but we have to rise to the situation."

Defeat to Croatia shouldn't really be the source of too much concern, even if it was Spain's first at a European Championship since 2004. As Del Bosque said, they largely had the game under control and probably would have won had Sergio Ramos' penalty not been saved. As it was, they ended up being caught on the break as they chased a win they didn't even need to top the group. Perhaps there was some naivety there, but they surely won't be so lax against Italy.

The big positive for Spain is that the stodginess of qualifying seems to have been left behind. The use of Nolito on the left, cutting in to link up with Alvaro Morata, has restored a fluency to the team, and while they may not quite be the pass-and-move machine of four years ago, the victory over Turkey was highly impressive.

Set against that is an Italy side that's looked more flexible tactically, and better drilled than anyone else at the tournament. Conte, more than any other coach at the Euros, treats his team as though it were a club. That's perhaps not surprising. After all, the side is heavily based on the Juventus team he created, and specifically on the back three of Andrea Barzagli, Leonardo Bonnucci and Giorgio Chiellini, supported by Juve goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon. That is the platform on which all else rests.

Everything else in the side is adjustable. Against Belgium, Conte had his two wing-backs, Antonio Candreva and Matteo Darmain, stay very wide. The attempt to stretch the Belgian back four was clear. It was effective, at least in part, because both Belgian full-backs, Tottenham's Jan Vertonghen and Laurent Ciman of Montreal Impact, are more naturally central-defenders. They are not quick on their feet, not necessarily adept when players run at them. Neither was likely to make the sort of forward surges that might have got in behind the wing-backs, which is always the potential weakness of a back three.

Although Belgium did create chances and Italy were forced into sufficient desperate tackles that they picked up four bookings – it was not quite the defensive masterclass many made it out to be – Conte essentially out-thought his Belgian counter-part Marc Wilmots.

It was rather tougher going in the second game. This was partly because Sweden didn't come at Italy as Belgium had – Conte's men had 45.3% of possession in the first game, 49.9% in the second – but also because Sweden, playing a 4-4-2 as opposed to the narrow 4-2-3-1 favoured by Belgium, naturally had two men on each flank. Conte kept the more attacking of his wing-backs, Candreva, who really is a winger who tracks back, but replaced Darmian, a very attacking full-back, with the more aggressive Alessandro Florenzi. That meant Italy over-manned three on two in the middle but, damningly, they lacked the creativity in that area to take advantage. Defeat for a much-changed side against the Republic of Ireland, having already sealed top spot in the group, probably isn't all that significant.

The battle on the flanks will again be key against Spain. Morata and David Silva could get behind Italy's wing-backs and the attacking nature of Spain's full-backs means Italy could find themselves outnumbered in wide areas. But then they're likely to sit so deep that this doesn't really matter; it certainly won't be a case of driving forward through the wing-backs as they did against Belgium. The probability is that it will be a cagey game in which Spain dominate possession. As they're well aware, though, cagey is what Italy do best.

@jonawils