Italy’s Luciano Spalletti was joined by goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma in Friday’s pre-match press conference, with the pair speaking to the media ahead of gli Azzurri’s round-of-16 tie against Switzerland. The winner will progress to face either England or Slovakia in the quarterfinal.
What did Luciano Spalletti say?
Italy struggled to get out of Group B, needing a last-minute winner against Croatia to advance to the knockout stages. However, Spalletti is happy with what he saw from his side during the group stage.
He said: “We were keen to qualify from the group, because the draw put us in a tough group and we saw that the players probably struggled with that.”
“I struggled with it a little bit as well. We had to make it through the group. We’ve done that, and now I expect to see them slightly more relaxed because we’re immediately focusing on a knockout match.”
The nature of knockout football is much different than the group stages, but Spalletti is confident that his Italy side have finalised everything they need to ahead of these must-win clashes. “I think the fact that we made it through to the knockout stage has sorted things out,” he told reporters.
“We qualified with the last kick of the game, but I think we deserved to make it through. Maybe we were lucky because the goal came in the final seconds of the game, but in terms of us trying to score that goal, I think we deserved to go through.”
“So maybe we can debate that at a later date, but we need to realise that we can’t afford to switch off as we did at the start of the second half in two matches or at certain times during games that we’ve played so far.”
“We’re now into the heart of the competition because you’ve made it through the group stage, [and that] now gives you that level that you need to demonstrate because there’s no alternative constantly.”
“So, from a psychological perspective, in terms of personality, I expect more than what we’ve shown thus far,” he concluded.
What did Gianluigi Donnarumma say?
Donnarumma has been one of Italy’s standout players at the tournament, and despite his relative youth at 25 years old, he is one of the more senior players in Luciano Spalletti’s squad.
The PSG goalkeeper said: “I feel a completely different man. I’ve grown up especially off the pitch as a man because moving abroad and playing overseas does allow you to grow as an individual above all.”
“So I’m one of the older members of the squad. It seems strange, but I do feel a lot more responsible.”
“I wear the captain’s armband. Wearing the Italy shirt and then wearing the captain’s armband on top of that is undescribable. I’m lost for words regarding what that means to represent my country. Still, there’s a lot more responsibility on my shoulders because of it, but I’m delighted about that,” he added.
Italy have grown into the tournament after their loss against Spain in the first game of their EUROs, and Donnarumma believes his country can get even stronger: “It was a tough group, a lot of people wrote us off during the group stage.”
“A lot of people said it was the group of death. So we’re positive because it wasn’t easy, and we’re well aware of that. We came up against some very good teams. We deserved to lose against Spain in terms of what we showed out there, but we did a good job against Croatia in terms of staying in the game.”
“Doing everything that you need to do without losing your head right up until the last minute paid off, and I think we deserved to score that equaliser, which ultimately brought us here. Tomorrow night’s match will be completely different because it’s a knockout game and as I said, we need to ensure we don’t make too many mistakes.”
Italy face Switzerland in the EURO2024 round-of-16 at 17:00 BST [18:00 CEST] on Saturday, 29 June. The match will be played at Olympiastadion Berlin, and you can catch all the build-up right here on FromTheSpot.
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