Il Messaggero: the FIGC never collected anything but the players had to put up with dinners, selfies and various carelessness
Italy’s head coach Luciano Spalletti reacts during the UEFA Euro 2024 Group B football match between Croatia and Italy at the Leipzig Stadium in Leipzig on June 24, 2024. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)
Spalletti annoyed by all those guests at Casa Italia, the sponsors had sold the tickets. Il Messaggero writes that reminds us that business always has two sides.
Here’s what Il Messaggero reports:
Spalletti lived this German retreat with a certain annoyance, between the comings and goings of the “guests” and the many extra commitments of the players. In addition to the team group, in the Iserlohn hotel there were 110 people including media staff and, indeed, guests. Too many for Lucio’s tastes, who had his son with him. Some sponsors had purchased the right to be able to stay in the headquarters of the Azzurri, who lived in a separate area, but the points of contact were still inevitable, especially in the restaurant area. Spalletti often wondered who all those people were, a source of distraction. Sponsors bring in money, they are life for a federation (and not only) and the FIGC has collected the highest amount in its history, so congratulations to its commercial director. The problem is that all this has some drawbacks: if some players, after training, had to attend dinners, lunches or shoot commercials, take selfies etc, it becomes a problem for those who have to keep the group’s attention high towards the objective, mainly – given the context – sporting.
And speaking of sports: the Iserlohn facility was improved during construction, but it was not ideal for a group accustomed to the excellence of Coverciano. A complex, for the first time, chosen from a UEFA catalog, which wanted and pushed for a low-consumption European Championship, even economic (Gravina is vice president and certainly could not betray Ceferin’s line). England and Portugal, for example, chose their facilities independently, deciding to spend much more on retreats and more comfortable places.
Prandelli: «The problem is not Spalletti but the intelligence and humility of the players»
Former Italian national team coach Cesare Prandelli spoke to Rai Radio 1 after the Azzurri’s elimination from Euro 2024 at the hands of Switzerland.
«What could Luciano do with Switzerland? [Spalletti]? He tried to change, he tried everything, but temperament, character, determination, desire to win were missing. If there had been a Chiellini on the field, we probably would have done something more. The protagonists are the players: the coach can do a lot, but if the interpreters are these… Many teams have come out with dignity, we didn’t do it».
On the 2026 World Cup:
«There is a risk of not qualifying. When we were eliminated in 2014, in a press conference I said: “but are we sure that in the next few years we will go there?” We already had data that showed a very negative trend in perspective. We are unable to propose players to the first team, to make them grow, to give them a strong moral strength and therefore we lose them. Perhaps the Federation must do something more, it must try to make the boys grow at home. Some journalists called me after a few years saying: ‘at the time we made fun of you but we should apologize’. But it’s not that I’m a fortune teller. This is the time to act, to put forward proposals, to create a pool of people who want to give something to football. Contracts are not needed, what is needed is the will to do something».
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