Andrea Pirlo is set to be given a new role in the Italy side as coach Cesare Prandelli tries to combat England’s plan to mark his star man out of their World Cup opener.
Pirlo was the game’s most influential player before Italy beat England on penalties in the quarter-finals of Euro 2012 and Roy Hodgson could use one of his attacking players to deny Pirlo time and space to dictate the game from deep in Manaus on Saturday.
To counteract this, Prandelli is leaning towards a complex 4-1-3-1-1 system, which would see Roma’s Daniele De Rossi — rather than Pirlo — as the deepest midfielder, with Pirlo, Marco Verratti and Claudio Marchisio just ahead of him.
The inclusion of Verratti, the accomplished playmaker from Paris St Germain, is designed to ease the creative burden on Pirlo by pairing him with his probable heir in the national team. The formation would leave Mario Balotelli as the sole forward, with Antonio Candreva, the attacking midfielder from Lazio who has never played at a big tournament, the nearest player to him.
Prandelli’s preferred system has been 4-3-1-2 but the broken tibia suffered by Riccardo Montolivo, a key man in that plan, is another factor to force him into this likely rethink.
A further clue to Prandelli’s ideas could be discovered in his line-up for last night’s friendly against Brazilian club Fluminense, which Italy won 5-3. None of the likely starters in Manaus were included in the initial XI, although the majority came on for the remaining half-hour.
Ciro Immobile, the forward who has just moved to Borussia Dortmund, scored a hat-trick, with his Lorenzo Insigne claiming the other two goals.
