Roberto Mancini discussed Federico Chiesa, Mario Balotelli, Jorginho and Federico Bernardeschi while promising “changes” against Portugal.
Italy’s opening Nations League match was a 1-1 draw with Poland at the Stadio Dall’Ara last night, as Chiesa came off the bench to earn a penalty – converted by Jorginho – cancelling out the Piotr Zielinski strike.
Roberto Mancini discussed Federico Chiesa, Mario Balotelli, Jorginho and Federico Bernardeschi while promising “changes” against Portugal.
Italy’s opening Nations League match was a 1-1 draw with Poland at the Stadio Dall’Ara last night, as Chiesa came off the bench to earn a penalty – converted by Jorginho – cancelling out the Piotr Zielinski strike.
“We gave the ball away too often in the first half and must be more incisive in front of goal, but the lads did everything they were meant to,” said the Coach in his Press conference.
“Jorginho was man-marked by Zielinski and when he managed to break away a little and find room, the whole team played better.
“Chiesa did well once he came on because he has characteristics that the others do not, such as that change of pace to turn the play around. He is young, but he will gradually improve.
“Bernardeschi did well, he is technically gifted and has it in him to provide goals and assists. He has enormous room for improvement and fell away as the game wore on, but that’s understandable.”
Balotelli was carrying a muscular problem and had extra warm-up exercises, so was it wise to keep him out there for an hour in clearly poor condition?
“He had a little problem in training this morning and it got worse during the game. Mario isn’t in peak condition, we knew he could play about 50 minutes.
“I will have to talk to him a lot and he must improve a lot. At times there are moments where it goes wrong, that is part of the job. Mario has to find form.
“I was telling him off because if the ball went down Poland’s right, he had to attack the space. I’m just disappointed because we didn’t win, not disappointed in any player.”
Italy have their next Nations League match coming up against Portugal in Lisbon on Monday evening.
“We will certainly make some changes and want to build on the second half performance. We need to get a better result than this,” added Mancini.
“We could well change the system too, just like a few players, but I think in the first half the issue wasn’t so much tactical as technical. When there are fewer misplaced passes, the defence will suffer much less.”