In contract to his predecessors, Prandelli has brought a personal touch to the Italian squad and the transformation has been stark
Back home they had been christened l'Italia del sorriso some time ago, though the watching world is only just cottoning on as to why. Cesare Prandelli's Azzurri can claim the European Championship against Spain on Sunday night and, if they do so, they will have restored their national team's reputation in the process. Given the traumas endured two years ago, an Italy bursting with smiles feels wonderfully appropriate.
Theirs has been a renaissance at these finals, the story made all the more romantic when placed in the context of the desperate underachievement in a pathetic defence of the World Cup in South Africa in 2010. Italy finished bottom of their group, behind Slovakia, Paraguay and New Zealand, with Marcello Lippi's side humiliated and the nation outraged. Prandelli had agreed to take up the reins prior to the finals but effectively walked into a messy divorce with all faith in the national team eroded. Gianluigi Buffon, infamously, had expressed doubt as to whether Italy would even reach Euro 2012, yet this is now a team unbeaten in 15 competitive matches and thrust into a ninth major final.
The transformation feels staggering and reflects directly upon Prandelli. The 54-year-old had gleaned three Serie A titles, a European Cup-Winners' Cup and a European Cup – the Heysel final against Liverpool – with Juventus as a midfield artisan whose diligence freed up Michel Platini to play. He hardly came highly decorated as a manager, his nomadic career has yielded a Serie B title with Verona in 1999 and, at its height, five successful years at Fiorentina. Yet he was a figure to contrast markedly with his predecessors. Where Lippi was the old-school disciplinarian, Prandelli is charming. He laughs and jokes through his public briefings, shares a beer in celebration back at Krakow's Casa Azzurri with all and sundry and is forever claiming to be calm even ahead of the most daunting of occasions.
He was the right man to restore the national team's image off the pitch and build bridges with a disillusioned public, with his initial task a PR exercise. "I realised the first aim was not the results," he said. "I didn't know when, or if, we would start winning again but I knew the first thing I had to do was bring the national team closer to the people of Italy again."
There were gestures, from squad visits to a prison in Florence to training at Rizziconi in Calabria, on land confiscated from the local mafia, the 'Ndrangheta. If the country was moving on from past controversies then so too was their national team. For those on the outside looking in, it struck the right tone and offered a sense of the required fresh start.
The contrasts with his predecessors did not end there. Where Lippi and Roberto Donadoni had stuck with tradition and authoritatively expressed their demands through their captains, whether it was via Fabio Cannavaro or Buffon, Prandelli has been more hands on and has made a point of speaking to each of his players individually. That might be considered basic but within the Italian set-up it felt exceptional. He has been more psychologist than manager at times, an approach that has paid dividends, eking the best out of members of his squad – Mario Balotelli and Antonio Cassano principal among them – others doubted could be integrated at this level.
He has become a footballing father figure for Balotelli, spending hours speaking with the Manchester City striker and forever stressing the role he deems must be undertaken on the pitch for the good of the team. The forward's substitution in the opening two games and relegation to the bench against Ireland suggested dissatisfaction but the 21-year-old, rather than sulk, has reacted positively. He, like others, needed reminding both of his qualities and his requirements. His display against the Germans was a reward.
If there is a heavy reliance upon players from Juventus – seven of the squad went through last season unbeaten in claiming Serie A – then all members of this party have been made to believe they can be pivotal. There have been 25 different starting line-ups and four systems over Prandelli's two years in charge and he came into this tournament, albeit on the back of some dismal friendly results, insisting selection would be determined by performances in training. Everyone had a chance of featuring, a reality that has spurred on the likes of the inexperienced Alessandro Diamanti, who now feels that he "belongs".
They all seem to enjoy playing in this team. Prandelli is a reformist, insisting upon a fluid, attacking mind-set to the extent it will be intriguing to monitor the transition of possession against Spain, with both teams revelling on the ball. There is no Luca Toni-type leading the Italian line and no Gennaro Gattuso cloned midfield snarlers intent on niggly disruption of their opponents' rhythm. Instead, there is confidence in their own ability to pass and create. This team imposes its own style on occasions, rather than reacting to their rivals' tactics.
"We started off with the idea of involving the players in how we would play the game," Prandelli said. "Many of them felt the time had come to play, I won't say a 'different type' of game because in football there is nothing new, but something else. I have plenty of quality midfielders so we play to our strengths. With these players, that means a much more attacking game."
This squad retains four members of the party that claimed the World Cup in 2006 but there are others – from Riccardo Montolivo to Claudio Marchisio – who had been deemed disasters at the tournament two years ago. They are flourishing at present with the faith of the management bringing the best out of their form. Andrea Pirlo may conduct the collective on the turf but the team's strength is in its unity. "When we started on this journey we were convinced we could become a 'team'," the coach said. "The players have bought into our ideas and they see that our philosophy allows them to express their quality."
All of it is overseen with Prandelli's sense of perspective, not least in the lengthy overnight pilgrimages made on foot to churches in Poland after the team's progress in the finals. Italy's domestic game is gripped by match-fixing scandals but there is respect for and faith in the man in charge of the national team. People remember that in the late summer of 2004 he left Roma just two months into his role to be with his wife, Manuela, who was suffering from breast cancer. That decision was greeted with surprise as well as sympathy, – his wife passed away in 2007 after an illness that had dragged for eight years – prompting him to wonder how he had been expected to react. "But then football is afraid of normality," he said.
It is perhaps because Italy's support can consider the coach grounded that he arrived in Krakow carried on a wave of affection and sends his team out in Kiev with the country pinching itself to be in this position. The team is transformed, pleasing on the eye and joyous at its progress. L'Italia del sorriso has never felt more appropriate. Read More
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