Preview: What Italy Women need to do tactically to ensure qualification

Italy Women will be facing Israel Women at the Artemio Franchi Stadium in a crucial match that would enable Italy to qualify to the upcoming Women’s Euro 2022 as a best runner-up while avoiding play-offs, if they meet certain conditions and get the desired result.

The Azzurre will need to win with a margin of two goals at least against Israel in order to secure their direct qualification, since this result would make Portugal’s mission more difficult because in that case, they will have to win 10-0 against Scotland in order to qualify instead of Italy.

The mission of the Italians sounds attainable yet it will not be as easy as it may sound. And therefore, in this tactical analysis we will discover why this match can be tricky, how can Israel be difficult to beat and how should Italy play as well as what tactical plans should they rely on.

The analysis will start by identifying the probable line-ups and formations of both teams before looking at Italy’s tactics and how they should approach this match while focusing on Israel’s strengths as well.

Expected line-ups and formations

Last time both teams played against each other was in 2019 and the game ended with a 2-3 win for Italy, and the teams were lined-up like this:

And although these formations may be used once again, there were some notable tactical changes that happened for both teams. For Italy, Milena Bertolini did not keep playing according to the 4-4-2 formation regularly since she alternated between the 4-3-1-2, the 4-2-3-1, the 4-3-3 and lately, she used the 3-5-2 formation against Denmark because during that away match the team needed to be solid at the back with three centre-backs and two wingers joining them in the defensive phase to become a 5-3-2 formation.

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