DORTMUND (Germany) – The coach of the Italian national team Luciano Spalletti, flanked by captain Gianluigi Donnarumma, presents the Azzurri’s debut at Euro2024 in a press conference against Sylvinho’s Albania, scheduled for tomorrow at 9pm in Dortmund: “Is it true that he banned the Playstation? You need to create a correct lifestyle to then give your best in the competition. So it’s not true that I said that. I said you can’t stay up until 3 or 4 in the morning, which is different. We are the protagonists of the dream of every Italian who, as a child, left school with a ball under his arm and returned home in the evening sweaty and with scraped knees. For our compatriots we are heroes, giants, we cannot help but put everything into the match. We have to show that we are at that level, the giants and heroes are not afraid to play a football match. Everyone must have their own toolbox in which they unscrew and screw what they need and what they don’t need“.
On Donnarumma and Acerbi
“Donnarumma? If he leaves PSG, I think he will go to an even stronger team. Then he will have to be good, in Italy we have many strong goalkeepers like Vicario and Meret and it’s nice to deal with champions of this type. Who in Acerbi’s place? Mancini has experience, but so does Bastoni he can be a leader and Buongiorno and Calafiori have the makings of those who want to get to play at great levels. But my whole team is very serious. We will be what we want to be“, continues Spalletti.
On Scamacca, Retegui and Raspadori
“We can also play with three at the back, but always in an attacking way. But we can also play with two strikers because Scamacca and Retegui are very strong and Raspadori can also play as a sub forward. I can play with both positions (three or four defense) but what counts is the positions on the pitch and whether we can control the game. In the last period he has grown a lot and we congratulated him. He is complete, he can do everything. Then he still has to compare himself with his performance and that of others. If I attack the goal ten times I receive five balls, if I do it twenty times I receive ten… Stretcher? You also listen to his feelings, he has already had a similar problem and in that case he developed the race that he had to do. What matters is the doctors’ opinion because footballers always want to play“, concludes Spalletti.
On Barella and Calafiori
“There will be a bit of emotion… Little by little as we get closer we feel this emotion transforming into something enchanting, it will be wonderful to play a match for our country in this stadium. There will be many opposing fans, but we will have 60,000 on the pitch because they will play together with us. Barella is the one who knows how to do this the most. He has a free and clean football, therefore we count on him. It’s clear that he still has to do well in today’s and tomorrow morning’s training, then we’ll decide. Kids need to know that right now we are giants. Giants have defined behaviors. We are heroes and heroes care about situations that not only concern themselves, but above all others. We have little time available to train the national team, but if you have a group like this available, with total disposition and awareness, everything becomes easier. What you learn in one training session is equivalent to ten sessions in the club. Calafiori showed that he can be trusted and who has the quality of an international footballer. He plays the defender when the others have the ball, but when he has the ball he needs to chase it, because he wants to go and score goals“, the words of Spalletti, shortly before the press conference, to the microphones of Sky Sport.
Spalletti, message to fans in Germany:
