DORTMUND. Focus on Spain, Luciano Spalletti. The Italian coach can’t wait to challenge the Iberians. The appointment is for tomorrow evening (9pm Rai1 and Sky Sport). The meeting is important. It will be essential not to lose. A draw could already be fundamental for going through to the next round. Naturally Italy will try to win. With the usual 4-2-3-1. It remains to be seen whether Cristante will be in midfield or Pellegrini. Di Lorenzo could also leave to make room for Darmian. But it’s not said.
«I want to see a convincing Italy», admitted the technical commissioner in the press room of the Veltins-Arena in Gelsenkirchen: “I want to see an Italy that repeats the good performance it did against Albania despite the fact that in front of us there is one of the the best football schools in the world – he continued – there are two paths to playing football and winning, the team and the great champions who have the best shots. That is the path we must take because we are missing the top player who wins games alone.”
What Spain do you expect?
«They know how to play attacking football, quality, short team and they interpret everything very well. We need to have no breaks and have that crazy desire to show that ours too is an important school. In my opinion the key is to play good football, holding the ball more. Then with Spain there will be some more verticalization because they don’t wait for you at the edge of the area. The dilemma is always the same, you have to verticalize to win. If the opposing team, as Albania did, stays at the edge of the area with the defensive line, what do you verticalize? Spain puts the game on you, they always press the goalkeeper too, sometimes we allow it. Morata presses back passes 20 times out of 20, and the team moves up the midfield. And then sometimes we can get some balls from behind, if we know how to recognize them and if we have the opportunity in the timing of the plays. We have respect for the history and quality of Spain, it would be a mistake to think we are stronger than we are, but we have the chance to play our game.”
Who are the penalty takers?
«Scamacca, Retegui, Dimarco. Then in my opinion they know how to beat Calafiori and Jorginho… Even if they beat one or two for now, there is one of these players. You always have to have a spare if the initial shooter doesn’t feel up to it.”
Will the lineup change?
«This time I’ll tell you the lineup tomorrow and not the day before because I haven’t received any news from the others about who’s playing. It’s one of the most important matches of my career: we all have stories to tell and the players will realize when they get to my age that they need stories to tell. This is one of those matches that can determine those stories.”
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What match will Italy play?
«Spain has become a school of football because it has always played the same football, because it has had the courage to maintain the same idea of football over time, the same demand and the same availability on the part of the players. To get to those levels, you have to always propose the same idea of football: not once everyone is forward and once everyone is behind. We must always try to play the game, have no breaks and have that crazy desire to show that ours is also an important school. They have it all in terms of individual characteristics and qualities. We’ll have to see what our reactions will be when they come at us with all the men. Croatia had some breaks and they got into these breaks. We will always have to keep the level high, put in that quality that takes away their ability to take you around the pitch. What tactical suit will serve. We are dressed by Armani… We will need the same tactical identity we have always had. We don’t want to have regrets about not doing our thing. We will go onto the field dressed well and ready to get our clothes dirty if necessary.”
Who will stop Yamal?
«We need to be able to find balance not only on a tactical level. Ten players who dribble cannot be supported, Yamal is better at doing that but he has less availability when he has to fall back. You need to know how to do both phases. We have to put some things in order but we are on the right track, because we have taken a few too many restarts, if I include the qualifiers. Then in addition to the individual and individuality there is the team, then if one has the acceleration with a maximum of 34 and the others 29, they have lower reaction times. If we are good we will think about what to do one on one.”
What approach should there be?
«Aggressive also means going to get it by pressuring them. The attempt must be made. You have to go fast, but it depends on the distances of the team. But even if we didn’t succeed. We want to press them short. In shorter times, in close distances there is the difficulty of being cleaner. They never lose it otherwise if you don’t press them. The attempt is to press them and be better than them at playing the ball. Then there’s everything inside the game. We can’t just play on the counter, they have Rodri and we have Jorginho in front of the defence. Rodri lowers himself and becomes the fifth defender, he always does what the situation requires. Jorginho is not good enough to be a fifth defender. He needs structure, body, physique, he is a more quality footballer. He tries to put together all this information and characteristics and qualities that he has to bring out a performance that resembles what he wants to do as much as possible.”
Is it a derby with Spain?
«No, it’s not a derby. For me they are all derbies: when I play a European Championship they are all finals, all derbies, all matches that will never happen to me again. I give it my utmost attention. We will try to repeat the same match played against Albania, we want to compete against a strong team to see our level of football against one of the strongest there is. We have always tried to do this. Even against strong teams in the qualifiers we tried to do this, a proactive football based on ball possession, if you give the ball into the hands of the opponents you will come out of this match badly. We will try to play our game and see if we are that good or not against one of the most recognizable teams.”
