“We don’t give up. We are Italy.” Gigio Donnarumma, as captain, waited yesterday at lunchtime to send his message to the Azzurri people via Twitter, with morale low after the bad defeat against Spain. A match in which the PSG goalkeeper was by far his best and with his saves he saved the team from real humiliation. Gigio suffered from the knockout against the Iberians, above all because he saw an abysmal gap. He tried to shake up the team first on the pitch and then after the match when he sent a loud and clear message in front of the cameras (“We missed too many passes and we lacked quality. We are angry, but destiny is still in our hands and we have to use this anger for the last match against Croatia”. Since yesterday, however, he has turned the page because Italy’s European Championship certainly did not end against Spain. On Monday, with a draw or a victory, there is the possibility of taking second place in the group and progressing to the round of 16.
we are the champions
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Donnarumma is one of the nine Italians who won the European Championship in 2021 with Mancini as coach and Vialli as delegation head. He particularly feels the burden of defending the title he won in England, especially because he now wears the captain’s armband and is a guide for his teammates. And even if Italy finds itself with its back against the wall, he is convinced that there is room to put the situation back in order with an important performance on the last day of the group. Yesterday his Croatian colleague Livakovic showered him with compliments (“At the last European Championships he was the best player of the tournament and he is still very young. He is an excellent goalkeeper, I think the best in the world, and against Spain he confirmed it”) and Buffon did the same (“He is our bulwark. Without Calafiori’s own goal, his performance would have been a ten”). Gigio wasn’t able to enjoy them because, despite the half day of rest granted by the coach to the group, no one felt like smiling: too much bitterness for the bad Euro-figure. The reigning champions cannot afford to exit in the round of 16 in a tournament which, in addition to the top two in each group, also qualifies the best four third-placed teams from the six groups to the round of 16. It would be a failure that Donnarumma does not want to bear imprinted on his skin. He who, once again in this 2023-24, had to deal with PSG’s unsuccessful assault on the Champions League. The Germans of Borussia Dortmund barred the doors to him in the Champions League final at Wembley and with Germany he feels… he has credit. On Monday in Leipzig he wants to be the one smiling.
