From Poison to Love, from the Tension of Leipzig to Iserlohn’s smiles. Luciano Spalletti opened training and given a day’s holiday to the keepers of the fort. A small crowd of Italians, especially children, wearing blue shirts, with pride in their hearts and a desire for happiness, stormed the grandstand.
And it was precisely a child, Elias, eight years old, who escaped the controls and finally threw himself onto the field, going to hug the coach, who reciprocated and rewarded the audacity of the moment, having his deputy Marco Domenichini escort him to the locker room for a selfie with his idol Federico Chiesa.
An afternoon of pampering. Spalletti is more relaxedthis is how those who live near him inside the retreat described him and this is how it also seemed in the first training session on the way to Switzerland, with the backup players on the pitch for a practice match and the starters on the adjacent pitch for a cool-down session.
Luciano seemed regenerated after Tuesday off, which he spent rereading the notes he had taken, rewatching the match against Croatia and studying Switzerland. However, he treated himself to a dinner with his staff and family in an Italian restaurant in Dortmund. El Shaarawy, who knows him having had him for a year at Roma, said that the coach is not nervous but only “energized, demanding, confident”. And attentive to details. «Because in modern football they make the difference. But we are strong and we want to get to the end”, said the Roma player.
Since yesterday, however, things have gotten serious. Under the sun, in the match dedicated to reservists, still a three-way defense and the coach’s eyes have carefully studied the movements of Mancini, Buongiorno and Gatti, because one of them is a candidate to replace the disqualified Calafiori. The fans, around 400, had fun and celebrated the braces of Frattesi and Scamacca. Zaccagni he initially remained on the sidelines, raising fears of injury. In reality he came on in the second half of the match. The most applauded were Chiesa and Donnarumma, who at the end agreed to autographs. Love is good and gives energy. Before Switzerland, that’s what’s needed.
