Alessandro Florenzi sees many pundits “eating their words” but Italy will “leave the talking to others”.
Having been described as potentially the worst Azzurri side to enter a major tournament, Antonio Conte’s men were impressive in their 2-0 win over Belgium.
“Sorry for my voice, we were supporting the lads from the bench,” a hoarse Florenzi began a Press conference by saying.
“Maybe we’re not who people said we were before the European Championships.
Alessandro Florenzi sees many pundits “eating their words” but Italy will “leave the talking to others”.
Having been described as potentially the worst Azzurri side to enter a major tournament, Antonio Conte’s men were impressive in their 2-0 win over Belgium.
“Sorry for my voice, we were supporting the lads from the bench,” a hoarse Florenzi began a Press conference by saying.
“Maybe we’re not who people said we were before the European Championships.
“We were poor, we wouldn’t get through the group… Many are eating their words. We’ll concentrate on the facts though, we’ll leave the talking to others.
“Much of the credit goes to the Coach, he’s transmitted his values and told us what we have to do. We don’t think much about words, we have to confirm them with facts.
“The notion of ‘team first’ isn’t a cliché, it’s something we’ve demonstrated. When we scored the second [against Belgium] the referee could have booked all 12 of us [substitutes, for encroaching on the pitch].
“We wanted to give our support. If it had been the other lads they’d have done the same thing.
“With every action we were all on our feet. [Jan] Vertonghen pushed [team manager] Lele Oriali, so [Lorenzo] Insigne and I went over to make him respect us, even though we only come up to his knee.”