Inter Milan star Alessandro Bastoni and Nicolo Barella flopped in last night’s showdown between Italy and Norway.
Corriere della Sera via FCInter1908 slammed the Nerazzurri duo for a woeful performance in Italy’s disastrous 4-1 defeat at San Siro.
Francesco Pio Esposito netted his first goal at Giuseppe Meazza to open the scoring in the 11th minute.
However, the 20-year-old’s heroics were in vain as Norway turned the game on its head in the second half.
Italian Press Slams Bastoni & Barella After Italy 1-4 Norway Loss
Alessandro Bastoni failed to contend with Erling Haaland, who scored a second-half brace.
Indeed, the Nerazzurri center-back lost track of the Manchester City star, leading to Norway’s third goal.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the first time that the 26-year-old messed up in this FIFA World Cup qualifying cycle.
He failed to impress in Italy’s 3-0 defeat to Norway on the opening matchday.
Furthermore, Bastoni’s display in a 5-4 win over Israel was underwhelming as well.
Meanwhile, Barella appears to have run out of steam, delivering yet another sluggish performance.
Every European team that qualified for the WC so far has many African players or imperative players with African backgrounds. I think that says a lot! Africans are the most elite in the sport nowadays. Most of Italian Youth are pampered, unlike players like Cassano and many more that had rough beginning… who had struggles and football was their out!
African players are in general top tier due to genetics, hardship for some… you mix that with elite European coaches and facilities and you have teams that do magic. Nico, Yamal, Mbappe, Dembele, 25/26 of France national team, Akanji, Embolo, Nusa, Lukaku, Doku, Rudiger, Balde, Saka, Bellingham, 16/26 of the Dutch team.
If the Italian Federation wants to have a strong team, we’ll maybe involve those young African talents in Italy. Let them wear the blue. Don’t treat them like crap, aka Super Mario “why always me?”
It’s insane that they blame Bastoni more than the shitty player De Lorenzo.. The first goal he got deleted by Nusa which is crazy… And that is a very important goal conceding for the whole game. Italian media man…… Just not friendly to Inter, that’s it.
Italy always relied on the dark arts of shirt tugging and play acting to get them over Shellie. Since VARS was introduced, their declien has been phenomenal.
Import players from Africa and East Asia and watch how your national team get destroyed by almighty Norway.
Infer fans should know why Inter keep using Acerbi. Without Acerbi, Bastoni can not defend.
Italians cannot play.. They are no more elite, and serie a is weak.. That’s the hard truth you guys don’t want to admit…
The flaw that Bastoni has is that he is not used to back 4. To be honest he only played back 3 his whole career and I don’t think that is a good thing. Back 3 allows Bastoni to be less defensively focused and that is why he goes forward alot of the times for Inter. To be honest personally I do not like defenders going to too often as I want the midfielders to be the one taking lead in the offensive phase.
Don’t even know why frattesi played. or even started tbh. He doesn’t play much for inter… he had 17 touches all game. Bastoni is confusing. He’ll play decent and then randomly for a period of the game just play a complete stinker. What was that pass that led to the third goal? Di marco was fine… don’t know why he marked haaland on the second goal and not bastoni. Barella wasn’t honestly that bad idk why the media is hitting out at him. He was just kind of mediocre. didn’t do nothing bad but only a little good
The press can blast them all day long, but the real problem is Gatusso. Who the hell decided to appoint that dumb@ss as a national coach
The real problem is lack of talent, not the coach.