During today’s appointment with L’Editoriale Paolo De Paola spoke on TMW Radio. These are his words:
How should we judge this failure of the Italians at the European Championship?
“I don’t put an apprentice at the helm of the national team and therefore at the showcase of our country. We need someone who has certainties in his field, you can’t transfer the certainties that are created daily by working in a club. Those who thought they could do it came out with broken bones like Sacchi. The Sacchi of Milan was completely different from that of the national team. They are excellent coaches for the long term, not for short competitions and Spalletti hasn’t expressed anything after this embarrassment. Spalletti’s excuses and words have disappointed me, our championship has provided many players to the other national teams and they are behaving well. There’s no getting away from it, Gravina and Spalletti should have resigned. We need a new federal president and a coach who knows how to best coordinate the players in a short period”.
Politics and people have lost confidence in football.
“He is a failed federal president, he cannot allow himself to say that external pressures should not be felt. There is talk of failure, how can this be a starting point looking at the Nations League or thinking about the World Cup? Gravina turns up his nose, but the national team belongs to everyone, not to President Gravina and the nation does not want to hear about Gravina or Spalletti. The management of the FIGC does not only concern the reform of the championships or sports justice, the government also wants to get its hands on football because something does not add up. Gravina worries about external suggestions, just read all the newspapers and then you have to hear that you want to move forward with the programs and projects. Everyone must resign, even just out of modesty. Anyone who has seen the national team’s games, even the defeat against Korea, defines the one against Switzerland as the worst defeat ever seen. No one decides to step aside? I do not want a future with people like that”.
What did Spalletti fail to convey?
“We never got into the technical aspect, but Spalletti always got the formations wrong and went into a mess. The three-man defense then the four-man defense, there was a disproportion in the defenders called up, we focused on Retegui who in Spalletti’s game is not much. There wasn’t a player who took the initiative, no one made a move. Everyone stopped and everyone blocked, how can you go on like this?”.
Is this national team as bad as many say?
“I dispute the fact that we are poor. We are not poor, we are not. We appeared poor, but we are not as individuals. If we leave the players to their own devices, without giving them a game, we become like this. We are not poor, the difference is in the handle and the coach. Then clearly there is individual responsibility, a minimum of pride in the players I would have liked to see and I saw it only in Donnarumma. What attitude did the individual players have? But enough with this tirade that we are poor”.
