ANTHONY MANNINO - Forget Ronaldinho, Pato, Micheal Essien, David Beckham, Charlie Davis, and Fracesco Totti; Antonio Cassano was the most missed player at this past World Cup. All Italian fans including myself were wary of the world cup squad which showed no creativity. The results proved this with the squad finishing 0-1-2 at the bottom of group F. Italy looked flat, played with zero emotion, and no one could press the opposing defense. They looked like the team they were- a squad with zero competitive wins in the year 2010.

Marcelo Lippi’s reason for leaving the Italian star at home was his attitude. Which had some truth 2-3 years ago when he was playing for AS Roma and Real Madrid. On both these teams Cassano had a behavior problem and a poor work rate. Cassano even created a nickname for himself, coined by his former coach Fabio Capello, “Cassanata” which means he only cares about himself, not the team. Following his move to Sampdoria in 2007 his attitude began to change and so did his form creating a new name for himself – “Fantantonio”. Lippi did at first have the right to exclude Cassano, but before the start of this World Cup he was a changed man. He had the right attitude and was in amazing form for Sampdoria at the end of last year giving Lippi zero merit to leave Cassano home for the World Cup.

In comes Antonio Cassano- how do the results of Italy change?
This season Cassano has played four competitive games with Sampdoria and Italy and has had an impact on each game. His teams’ records during the span is 3-0-1 and Cassano had scored four times (once in each game) and had two assists. To look further on how his play has impacted his teams look when he has scored his goal. In his game against Estonia, Cassano scored the game-tying goal and had a beautiful assist for the game-winning goal.

The reason why an Italy team with Cassano is great is because how Cassano can attack opposing defenses. The equivalent is a Dutch team without Wesley Sneijder. The Dutch midfielder did not just score goals for Netherland; he scored big goals (2 game winners, including game tying and winning goal against Brazil). He also ran the offense and was able to place players in dangerous positions to score.

An Italy with “Fantantonio” on the pitch would have been a thousand times better than how the Azzurri fared in South Africa. Looking at Cassano’s first two matches in Euro 2012, five of the starters in those games also started at the World Cup. The core of the team has not changed much, but and Italy with Cassano is different. The results are drastically different- Italy is 2-0 with Cassano and 0-1-2 without him. Simply, Italy is better with Cassano now. They flow, do not have trouble bring the ball forward, and have a game changer. These were all things Italy lacked in South Africa and is why they struggled. While an Italy with Cassano may not have won the World Cup, they would not have been embarrassing to watch and could have made a run in the latter stages.

by Anthony