Chiellini spoke this week to The Guardian about the chemistry with his other defenders and the place of Italy’s defensive tradition in modern football.
For many of those passionate about the Italian national team this particular crop of players is nothing to get excited about. Lacking any real world class attacking options and missing the elite presence of players like Marchisio or Verratti in the middle of the pitch, Italian expectations are more modest than usual ahead of this edition of the European Championships.
What has apparently been forgotten amongst all the pessimism is the tested quality and reliability that lies at the back of this Italy team. For all the international press attention that Barcelona’s MSN trio have garnered in recent years, the Juventus’ BBC have been equally important in their team’s success as Messi Suarez and Neymar have been to theirs.
Barzagli, Bonucci and Chiellini, who sit in front of the timeless Gigi Buffon, have acted as a near impentrable rock for Juventus as they have put together five consequetive Italian league titles. It’s probably worth remembering that this defensive quartet was first assembled by Antonio Conte when the wheels of Juve’s recent dominance were set in motion in 2010.
For those Italians looking to see the glass as half full this summer, these four players would be the place to start. Speaking to The Guardian this week, Chielleni explained the dynamic of the defensive unit, ‘I am the most aggressive one, I go hunting for my opponents high up the field, and I put stock in physical one-on-ones and winning individual duels. Leo is our defensive regista, who helps us to launch attacks and to close down the time and space that the other team gets on the ball. Andrea is our professor. He’s always in the right place at the right moment’.
In spite of the fact that this chemistry helped Buffon to the longest run of games without conceding a goal in Serie A just this season, recent changes in world football have let a certain amount of self-doubt creep in. “We Italians are always criticising ourselves. The idea that we do not play with the ball enough – that we always think about defending first – became a big topic, and so you had this project of Spanish-isation. Guardiola-isation. Suddenly we have little boys playing the ball out from the keeper, zonal marking, football the way Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona played’.
- Whatever lies in wait for Chiellini and his defensive brethren this summer, we can be sure that he will attack it with the same uncompromising and competetive attitude that has made him one of his country’s most trusted talents.
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