The defeats that count: which losses made Italy grow

Not all defeats are the same. That’s the idea running through Moreno Molla’s thinking on Italy’s growth: there are losses that build a group and losses that serve as a wake-up call. Knowing how to tell them apart is already a sign of maturity.

Which defeats make a national team grow

The ones in which a group suffers and learns. For Molla, even certain “hard” wins — Romania and Portugal, tricky opening half-hours — helped the lads grow. The defeat that weighs differently is the one that forces you to look at yourself in the mirror.

The Georgia trap

The symbolic case is Georgia. A summer match faced with a very young group, almost an Under-23 side, in which — Molla recounts — the Azzurri fell into the «big trap»: while Georgia trained in brutal conditions, Italy was sent to a resort on the Black Sea. A moment of reckoning. Because that fixture counts double: every defeat feeds the «let’s swap them in the Six Nations» narrative, and by dint of losing you no longer defend that place.

The weight of expectations

Then there’s the expectations chapter, the ones inflated on the eve of the 2023 World Cup. Molla recalls Italy billed as «the surprise of the tournament», with the federation trying to relaunch the image and the famous «we’re making the quarters». An injection of confidence more than a promise: and Molla doesn’t feel like criticising it. «Whether we’d gone in under the radar or full of bravado — he says — it would have changed little: it changes the perception, not the substance».

The perfect storm against New Zealand

On that World Cup, more than a failure, Molla sees pure bad luck. The match with New Zealand was «the perfect storm»: the All Blacks, beaten in their opener by France, had to thrash Italy to get out of the pool. A wounded, fired-up opponent, at the wrong moment.

«Thinking we could qualify was almost madness: and that alone says how many steps forward we’d taken.»

Read also: Italy v Australia in Udine, the finest win · Italy’s revival according to Molla

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