Gianluigi Buffon is pleased with the performances the Italy squad put in during their victories over France and Israel last month, but has warned the squad that the levels they showed last month are expected in every game moving forwards.
The Azzurri squad have assembled at Coverciano for the upcoming round of Nations League fixtures. Luciano Spalletti and his squad will face Belgium and Israel on October 10 and 14 respectively.
Buffon wanrs Italy: ‘We always expect performances of this calibre’
Buffon believes that the disappointment of the early EURO 2024 exit has helped the Italy players grow on and off the pitch, but he says that they have now set themselves a higher benchmark after a particularly impressive 3-1 win away against France last month.
He also feels that the poor Italy performances over the summer were the games that came as a surprise, rather than the good results against France and Israel last time out.
“There are a lot of young guys in the national team, but they’ve already shown that they can contribute with something important,” Buffon said, speaking at an event in Bologna.
“They’re strong on a human level, and even better than before after the experience they’ve had. This can only make the national team more ambitious and the recent games have confirmed this expectation.
“As I told them today, the Federation is happy with the games that they won, but we always expect performances of that calibre. Our level is high, I said it after the EUROs. The September matches didn’t surprise me, the ones before did.”
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