A couple of days ago I thought about how bad it was to see Mancini's Italy against Poland, how the problem was on the one hand in the mediocrity of the quality of individual players and another in the mediocrity expressed in terms of game , concentration and attention.

The challenge with Portugal has only confirmed these problems, introducing other kind of concern.

It was almost like to smile with tenderness in these days when super-journalists were spitting their hands just to hear the name of Federico Chiesa and how the magazine sports titles wrote entire pages to the new phenomenon that would have pulled us out of the impasse and how not on TV they did nothing but broadcast footage of the new savior of the fatherland.

It came to smile.

Not because Federico Chiesa is not a good player, in fact he is potentially a phenomenon internationally, but because a great national, with a great tradition like ours can not think of pulling out of a black hole of these proportions by charging on the shoulders of a 20 year old the entire team.

It's crazy or maybe, it's simply tipical for italian country.

We think we can make up for structural problems and mentalities thanks to a single man, thanks to talent, thanks to the desire.

The world is not like that.

If Spain, Germany, France and many other top teams have surpassed us and outperformed in the last 12 years, it is because they have carried on a clear and courageous program on a sporting level. A long program, not weeks.

A program that includes investments in youth sectors, structures and new rules.

We do not do this.

We never did it.

Maybe we'll never do it.

Let us then resign ourselves to seeing this Italy. In seeing us canceled in front of Poland and Portugal.

In finding that Donnarumma is the best in the field in both games.

We have to reasign. The time of dreams is over. The time of nightmare began.