EVEN the elements seem to be contriving against Italy ahead of their opening Euro 2012 encounter with defending champions Spain. There are worse consequences of an earthquake than an abandoned friendly, but if the Azzurri had been able to play Luxembourg in Parma, they probably would have at least improved their recent record of three losses in three warm-ups.
Russia beat them 3-0 in Zurich on Friday night, thanks to a series of defensive errors from the country who reached the finals having conceded fewer goals than anybody else (two in 10 games).
Goalkeeper and captain Gianluigi Buffon injured a shoulder and was substituted. The good news? Mario Balotelli had a lively match, and behaved himself.
He appeared motivated, too, something his teammates might have doubted judging by the words of their coach, Cesare Prandelli, on national radio before the match.
However, the pressing issue is not Buffon’s fitness or Balotelli’s whims, but the match-fixing inquiry. It mainly concerns players from clubs not heavily represented in the squad, but it has affected Prandelli’s plans.
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At the start of the week, the full-back Domenico Criscito’s room at the Italian federation’s training headquarters was raided by police. Criscito, of Zenit Saint Petersburg, played at Genoa for three seasons until last year, the spell being investigated.
He would have been a probable starter at the tournament, but will not now be going. Prandelli explained his exclusion by citing the pressure the inquiry would have put him under. Criscito says he is a scapegoat who had no role in any match-fixing.
Prandelli spoke supportively and affectionately of Criscito on Friday, but also told the RAI radio station that “if we have to stay at home [from the Euros] for the good of Italian football, we will”.
Cue panic among his employers and the government. Giancarlo Abete, president of the federation, publicly interpreted Prandelli’s statement as the coach “letting off steam”.
It may have been a little more strategic than that. Most of the country’s football community, including the elite 23 gathered in Tuscany, were taken aback by how their prime minister, Mario Monti, responded to the latest raids in a long investigation of illegal betting rings.
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On Tuesday, Monti talked of suspending professional football in Italy altogether “for two or three years” if it would help solve endemic corruption.
That was quite a shock for a country accustomed to heads of government, such as Silvio Berlusconi, who embrace football as a national treasure and build political slogans around terrace chants.
Prandelli’s task is to fortify his squad. He was given little choice by the federation but to exclude Criscito, and he has had to face awkward questions about two other members of the party.
Juventus defender Leonardo Bonucci is expected to be questioned because he used to play for Bari. Meanwhile, magistrates are reported to be looking into heavy bets allegedly placed by Buffon in the past two years. The keeper said yesterday: “How I spend my money is up to me.”
Prandelli has been obliged to point to distinctions between the case of Criscito, who is under investigation, and Bonucci, who is not, while supporting Buffon. “Gigi is strong,” the coach said. “But at times like these the pressure is bound to weigh on him.”
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Buffon will no doubt recall how the Calciopoli scandal stalked the Italy squad in 2006. Then, several clubs, especially Buffon’s Juventus, were investigated because their directors had been manipulating referees.
During the World Cup that year, one of Buffon’s former teammates, Gianluca Pessotto, who was working as an official at the club and disturbed by the scandal, jumped from a fourth-storey window in an apparent suicide attempt. He survived.
Calciopoli left Juventus relegated, but did not implicate its players in any wrong-doing. As it unfolded during the World Cup, it did bind Italy’s players, as Fabio Cannavaro, the captain of that team, pointed out. “In that sort of situation, everybody comes together, you tighten up,” he said.
Folklore has it that when corruption scandals flare up, the Azzurri respond well. That was the case in 1982, following a match-fixing scandal — the Totonero affair — that implicated striker Paolo Rossi, who emerged as a hero of the successful World Cup campaign.
Prandelli would rather these precedents were not evoked so often. “I know Italy has had problems like this before and reacted by being successful,” he said. “But also an atmosphere of calm can be helpful.”
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The comments of his prime minister did not contribute to that, and the suspicion is that Prandelli’s offer to withdraw the squad was the studied creation of a siege mentality.