Malta coach Michele Marcolini feels regret after ‘forcing Gianluigi Donnarumma into a miracle’ only to then capitulate 2-0 to Italy in their EURO 2024 qualifier.
The hosts had an early opportunity with Alexander Satariano denied by the Donnarumma fingertip save, but that soon gave way to Azzurri dominance with goals from Mateo Retegui on a corner and Matteo Pessina.
It is the second defeat in the EURO 2024 qualifiers for Malta, who were beaten 2-1 by North Macedonia on Thursday.
This must be a curious situation for former Chievo midfielder Marcolini, who is the coach of Malta, but also a proud Italian.
“I cannot be happy, because when your team loses, you are never happy. If we want to be honest, the quality of the players on the field was completely different,” Marcolini told RAI Sport.
“We played the game we had to play. We forced Donnarumma into a miracle straight away, but then the regret is that we conceded on the first Italy chance from a corner. That made it even more difficult than it already would’ve been.
“The lads continued to do what I asked, which was be courageous. It’s natural that it becomes impossible after going behind early against a great side like Italy, but my players had the right attitude, tried to be as positive as possible and regret that when we did create those chances, we were lacking in the final pass or shot.
“Italy are Italy, it was like climbing Mount Everest for us, at the end of the day we had a good performance.”
Marcolini concedes that Italy losing the opening qualifier to England meant that Malta were never going to be taken for granted and that took away one of the only strengths they might’ve had.
“The Azzurri were scared in the first couple of minutes with our chance, but then as is natural, their quality emerged and there was absolutely no chance they would come here anything less than fully focused after the England game.
“They tried to play their game and so we did we.”
Marcolini also lost star player Teddy Teuma to injury in training and he was only able to make a substitute appearance this evening.