Federico Chiesa spoke to the official UEFA channels two days after his debut at Euro 2024. For the Juventus striker, this is the second participation in the European Championships after that at Euro 2020, in which he scored a decisive goal in the semi-final against Spain, the opponents of the blues in the group:
“The emotions that goal aroused in me are magnificent because it was a really hard-fought semi-final, we suffered and then in the end we managed to reach the final. It was a wonderful goal. But now we have to start a new tournament, with new challenges, a tough group , we have to think about that. Thinking back to what we did in the last European Championship is very pleasing.”
On the objectives
My goal is always to return to the top. I’m 26 years old, there’s time and I’d like to demonstrate what I’m made of in this European Championship. We want to demonstrate our value in this European Championship. We wanted to do it in the previous one too and we won. Let’s see now what we can do, then our goal will be to return to playing in a World Cup because Italy missed two. And this is something that is not good either for the people or for the Italian football movement.”
On former national team teammates Bonucci and Chiellini
“Giorgio and Leo were absolute champions but I saw that in our team there are future absolute champions. They have the qualities. We are a good group, we are a good national team and we will try to offer the football that the coach wants and to go as far forward as possible.”
On the comparison with Jannik Sinner by Luciano Spalletti
“I was pleased with this comparison, but he plays an individual sport. It’s a little different to be number 1 there, it’s an incredible thing. Tennis is a sport that I admire so much as do the athletes who play it. Sinner, seen From the outside, he seems like a good guy with a good head on his shoulders who only had one thing in mind, to be first, and he did it.”
On Gianluca Scamacca
“I get along well with him, we often talk off the pitch. The thing that makes me smile is that at the beginning of the last European Championship there were doubts about our national team. About what we could do, where we could get to. They still exist but we will go on the pitch just to play football and demonstrate what our value is.”
In the Italian group
“It’s really tough. After Albania we have Spain and Croatia and we know what it means to play against them. Croatia has achieved great results, especially at the World Cup. They have great players. Albania knows us, they know what Italian football means , it will be a really tough challenge and we will have to be very focused.”
Italy-Albania: precedents, curiosities, possible protagonists
