More than pride on the line for Azzurri

You get the feeling that Italy will have more on the line than World Cup qualification when its men’s national team faces Bosnia and Herzegovina on Tuesday (1:45 p.m. CT, DAZN).

“Feeling” is the operative word here.

The Azzurri feel they must prevail in Zenica, about an hour northwest of Sarajevo, as defeat would mean omission from a third successive World Cup finals. Victory, the only tenable result, would merely deliver the bare minimum: a berth in the tournament’s Group B and an opener against co-host Canada.

Far from excitement, the prospect of that June 12 match in Toronto would generate a neutral feeling in a country with four World Cups to its name. It would be an improvement. Beat the Canadians, and it would begin to feel familiar; beat Switzerland six days later and it would start to feel almost warm.

But no one is looking that far ahead, least of all the players and their World Cup-winning manager, Gennaro Gattuso.

Known in his playing days as “Ii Ringhio,” or “the Snarl,” Gattuso was almost as famous for his tackling as for the feeling with which he sang Fratelli d’Italia prior to Azzurri matches. Given his unimpressive coaching record at 10 clubs over 13 years, it was also suggested he’d accepted the Italy job last spring because the serious candidates all took a pass.

Which is probably just as well, as the players aren’t in need of coaching. That is, the training and tactics and formations and strategies, while obviously important, are less so to this group than the feeling that it’s understood.

Gattuso gets that. He feels the same way.

Now, any number of explanations have been floated for Italy’s decline post-2006, when it last won a World Cup knockout match — the final versus France. Alessandro Del Piero, who was part of that team, puts it down to low investment in youth academies and the crumbling stadia that has hampered the revenues required to be competitive at club level.

Philipp Lahm has made the point that Serie A football is too slow. In a column last year for The Guardian, the former Germany captain and 2014 World Cup winner opined that diminishing on-field quality — perhaps building off Del Piero’s observation — combined with a tactical focus on defending instead of pressing, has led to an absence of dynamism.

Then there’s the philosophical feud that, in its latest iteration, has pitted supporters of manager Roberto De Zerbi and his Como 1907 acolyte Cesc Fàbregas against those of AC Milan boss Massimiliano Allegri.

De Zerbi and Fàbregas, as explained by Rome daily Il Messaggero, are adherents of giochisti, which prioritizes possession and counter-pressing. This is what Lahm would like to see more of. Fabregas has stated he’d prefer to lose than adopt a defensive posture.

Allegri prefers the more traditional risultatisti, in which his sides sit back and hit the opponent at calculated moments, oftentimes completing a match with less than 40 per cent of the ball. This is what detractors blame for Italy’s waning performances on the international stage.

For his part, Gattuso is of neither faction. As ex-Italy head coach Cesare Prandelli explained in La Gazzetta dello Sport on Thursday, il Ringhio is the manager of the dinner table.

Without a scheduled training camp — such is the disfavour in which the national team finds itself — Gattuso spent the last few weeks on a culinary tour of Europe. He met his players, Prandelli revealed, “over dinner, over lunch; like with friends, not necessarily talking about football.”

Last week, after sitting down to a meal with the manager and assistants Gianluigi Buffon and Leonardo Bonucci — fellow Azzurri legends — Arsenal defender Riccardo Calafiori joked that Gattuso had been phoning him more than his mother.

By then, the 48-year-old had already visited striker Mateo Retegui in Saudi Arabia and presided over a dinner in Milan to which at least 15 players were invited, among them defender Alessandro Bastoni, midfielders Nicolò Barella and Manuel Locatelli, and forward Moise Kean.

Gattuso believes his players, more than anything else, want to feel as though they’re part of a family — with him as the patriarch.

Upon accepting the national team appointment nine months ago, he mused that this family feeling was “the most important thing, more than tactics or formations.” He also speculated — rightly — that a familial bond would help insulate the group from the scrutiny of a public and press that feel the Azzurri can only disappoint them.

And yet, the pressure, the criticism and, should it lose on Tuesday, the disparagement of this Italy squad pales in comparison to the long-term fall-out of missing another World Cup.

Already, the average Italian teenager will have only vague memories, if any at all, of their country’s last World Cup match. Miss another tournament and Azzurri will lose an entire generation — of fans, yes, but also of youngsters who dream of wearing the Italy shirt.

In other words, Italy’s national team risks apathy, an absence of feeling. That’s what’s at stake. And for this team, this country, that’s the worst outcome imaginable.

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