Euro 2020: Jorginho provides the brains and beating heart of Italy team

Midfield fulcrum will be vital to Mancini's gameplan going into Wembley final against England

He is “the brains of Italy”, says Fabio Capello, the distinguished Italian manager who was once in charge of England. Not so long ago, he became a source of frustration to fans of Chelsea, his club. Yet in May he was key to their success in the Champions League. Another winning final on Sunday and Jorginho will make a case for being on the podium for this year’s Ballon D’Or.

The “brains of Italy” was born in Brazil, though that lineage is scarcely remarked on any longer, so essential, so committed are Jorginho’s performances in the blue jersey of the country that became his home at the age of 15. Roberto Mancini, the Italy manager, would scarcely conceive of picking a side without a fit Jorginho, now 29.

Without him, Italy might very well not be preparing to take on England at Wembley for the title of European champions. Besides his winning penalty in the shoot-out that resolved the semi-final against Spain five days ago, Jorginho kept order in what had been tiring, pressured 120 minutes against the Spaniards.

He emerged from it to be informed of a startling statistic: No player in any European championship tournament match in this or the previous competition had made as many interceptions as Jorginho, Italy’s deepest-lying midfielder, against a Spain who dominated the ball. That’s quite a stat given that it takes in 100 games’ worth of football.

Jorginho the protector is vital to Italy’s game plan. Only Spain’s Pedri, a tireless teenager, has covered more ground in the course of the tournament so far. But Jorginho the passer is as important as Jorginho the shield. Another stat: of the finalists, only John Stones, the England defender, has issued more completed passes at Euro 2020.

Jorginho is the heart, soul and the bookend of Italy’s stunning unbeaten run going into today. Rewind back to September 2018, when the Azzurri were still shell-shocked from having missed out on even qualifying for that summer’s World Cup. Mancini had taken over after that failure, intent on rejuvenating the squad, speeding up Italy’s style of play. Jorginho would have been entitled to feel vulnerable.

Mancini trusted him, calling him “one of the best midfielders in Europe.” He was certainly grateful to Jorginho’s reliable technique from the penalty spot for saving Italy from a defeat in their first competitive game under the new head coach. They were at home to Poland in the Uefa Nations League and 1-0 down with 11 minutes to go. Federico Chiesa, 20 years-old, had just come on as a substitute.

Italy and England's road to Euro 2020 final

Chiesa was fouled in the Poland penalty area. Jorginho converted the spot-kick. Although Italy would lose narrowly in Lisbon to Portugal a few days later, a plan was coming together. Mancini’s Italy would not finish on the losing side for the next 33 matches.

The closest that record came to fraying was on Tuesday at Wembley, when 120 minutes of a draining contest with Spain went down to the duels from the penalty spot. Jorginho secured the Azzurri’s right to play in today’s final with a cool, rolled finish past a barely moving Unai Simon. Chiesa, with a super finish, had scored the goal that put Italy 1-0 up ahead of Spain’s equaliser within the 90 minutes.

Chiesa, used off the bench when the Euro 2020 kicked off, has worked his way into Mancini’s preferred starting XI since, the dashing Juventus winger contributing two goals in the knockout phase. It is Chiesa’s blessing to have grown up in a famous footballing family, his father a former Italy striker and club teammate of Mancini’s at Sampdoria in the 1990s. It is his burden to keep being compared with his father, Enrico, who also scored for Italy at a European championship staged in England, in 1996.

It has sometimes been Jorginho’s burden that he is deemed to be the footballing heir to a single manager, Maurizio Sarri and seen as the arch-loyalist towards that coach’s tactical idiosyncrasies. Sarri developed Jorginho’s game at Napoli; Sarri signed him for Chelsea, where, when the football was not fluent, Jorginho came under harsh criticism.

Sarri left Chelsea two summers ago. His replacement, Frank Lampard, seemed to go to cool on Jorginho in the weeks ahead of Lampard’s being sacked at the beginning of this year. But under Thomas Tuchel, next into the Chelsea hot seat, Jorginho has thrived. He is 90 minutes from being a double European champion this season — for his club and for the country that made him one of their own.