Read every word Alessandro Bastoni said about Italy, Riccardo Calafiori and Croatia ahead of a key EURO 2024 group stage clash in Leipzig.
Football Italia was among the accredited media at the Leipzig Stadium on Sunday evening when Luciano Spalletti and Bastoni addressed reporters at a pre-match press conference on the eve of an EURO 2024 match against Croatia.
Every word Spalletti said on Italy changes, Croatia, Dimarco and Di Lorenzo
Here’s every word the Inter defender said.
FEAR – “I don’t like fear when referring to football. You have fear when you have an illness, or there are more serious things. We’ve looked at Croatia, they could have scored several goals vs. Spain. We have the utmost respect for them, they have experience and played so many games together. Many times it doesn’t even happen at at a club level. I think the Spain blow united us even more. It’s always easy to celebrate when you win, but it’s when you lose that you see how men are made. Tomorrow night we want to prove we have learned the lesson.”
CROATIA EXPERIENCE – “We need to take the sting out of the opposition’s enthusiasm with our approach. Our approach, more than any technical ability, is about being daring and showing self-confidence; that’s what we were lacking against Spain, but we have great respect for Croatia, and we’ll show it tomorrow.”
PLAYING WITH DIFFERENT SYSTEMS – “Playing with a back three or back four is different, I have different duties than at Inter, but roles are relative in football. Even at Inter I find myself in positions that are different from the starting position. It’s about the footballing intelligence and smartness in moments that can be decisive. This is the point.”
ITALY’S ATTITUDE – “As I said before, aside from the technical errors, the attitude against Spain was wrong, and I think it was up to whether we could dominate proceedings because the more you have the ball, the more you have confidence. So the more we have the ball [against Croatia] the better.
“I repeat, there’s no place or reason for fear in football. We have spoken about what happened v. Spain and we understood our mistakes. When you lose, you want the motivation to improve, and luckily, football always gives you a second chance, so we can’t wait to play tomorrow night.”
CALAFIORI – “I am on good terms with Calafiori. He has enormous quality, he has no fear of playing the ball, and he’s similar to the player I was three years ago. As the coach said, playing certain games is an important step. We’ve played two games together so I hope we will complete this affinity with time.”