Sweden 1 - 0 Italy - Player ratings: Pathetic Azzurri crash into Swedish wall

10 nov 2017

It was a performance that reeked of the one away against Spain when Italy got hammered. Against Sweden, Giampiero Ventura's men were not hammered but failed to create more than 1 clear chance over 90 minutes in the first leg in Stockholm's Friends Arena losing 1-0 after Jakob Johansson's shot midway through the second half deflected off of Daniele De Rossi and went into the back of the net wrongfooting Buffon.

Although the goal came from a lucky rebound, there was nothing lucky with Sweden's win who thoroughyl deserve the victory after a solid performance offensively but above all defensively. Former Siena and Cagliari midfielder Albin Ekdal was brilliant in his role tying Sweden's defence with their attack and when he came off injured his replacement not only scored the winning goal but continued to do what Ekdal had done.

Italy on the other hand looked just as clueless and confused as many pundits, myself included, had predicted an aside from Belotti's header in the beginning of the first half, failed to string 2 passes together. After almost 2 years in charge of the Azzurri Ventura's lacks an identity far worse than when he took over from Antonio Conte. The issue is not whether or not Ventura plays a 4-2-4 or as he did today with a 3-5-2 formation, the problems go far deeper than that. With so much talent in the Italy squad, it is a feat in and of itself to get this team to produce so little when going forward.

Ahead of this match Calciomercato.com interviewed former Bologna and Swedish international striker Kennet Andersson where he predicted that the match in Stockholm would end in a 1-0 win followed by 0-0 draw in the return leg at the San Siro. On Monday night we will know if he was right on both matches since he and Sweden nailed this first result.

Ratings:

Sweden (4-4-2): Robin Olsen (6); Emil Krafth (6,5), Victor Nilsson-Lindelöf (7), Andreas Granqvist (6.5), Ludwig Augustinsson (6); Viktor Claesson (6.5), Sebastian Larsson (7), Albin Ekdal (7,5), Emil Forsberg (6,5); Ola Toivonen (6), Marcus Berg (6).

Subs: Jakob Johansson (7), Isaac Kiese-Thelin (6), Gustav Svensson (N/A).

Italy (3-5-2): Gianluigi Buffon (6,5); Andrea Barzagli (7), Leonardo Bonucci (6), Giorgio Chiellini (6,5); Antonio Candreva (5,5), Marco Parolo (5), Daniele De Rossi (6), Marco Verratti (6,5), Matteo Darmian (6); Ciro Immobile (5,5), Andrea Belotti (4,5).

Subs: Eder (5), Lorenzo Insigne (5,5).

Nima Tavallaey Roodsari