During his post-match press conference last night, Luciano Spalletti said he should have given more rest to his players prior to the Spain match but insisted the Azzurri playing style won’t change: ‘That’s the only way to do things.’
The Azzurri suffered a 1-0 loss to Spain on Thursday night, but the performance was way worse than the scoreline suggests as Spalletti’s men were unable to even produce a single shot on target.
“We probably didn’t recover very well from the tournament’s demands and importance,” the CT said at a press conference attended by Football Italia.
“There was too much of a gulf in terms of sharpness. If you don’t have the same stamina as the opposition, you can do things with the same reactiveness and the same speed of reaction. So, if you are struggling physically and come up against a team that is as technical as they are, you start to lose those cool heads, and as a result, you cannot react. Ultimately it’s at the heart of the issue.
“Leaving aside any technical ability in terms of Nico Williams and Lamine Yamal, who have extraordinary pace, there was a big difference in terms of how we reacted compared to them in general times. This means we struggle when they counter-press, and we make mistakes with countless passes. But it all comes down to how fresh you are.”
Spalletti admitted Spain looked sharper than the Azzurri even during a post-match interview with Sky Sport Italia.
“Maybe I need to give them all [Italy players] rest,” he added during his press conference.
“I probably needed to give them more days off because we gave them a day and a half of rest. It was the right decision in terms of data and monitoring everything with the GPS, but there was too much of a gulf. We were constantly stretched and never able to squeeze the space between our units, and they caused us problems beyond what the scoreline suggests. We were too frantic when trying to kick the ball over their defensive line. We were too quick and we were not able to play compact as a team. We didn’t play a fluid brand of football.”
Spalletti had said on the eve of the match that he wanted to dominate proceedings against Spain and try to show that Italy were also an “important school of football”, but what resulted from the Gelsenkirchen match was quite the opposite.
“Everyone would love to copy Spain in terms of the way they play. They’ve been playing the best football for the longest time,” said the CT who, however, is not planning to change the Azzurri’s identity and style.
“Ultimately, if you come up against teams like this, it becomes challenging if you just sit deep and you have to overhaul your concept of the team,” he insisted.
“You pick a team that just chases after the ball and doesn’t keep possession. That’s not a brand of football I like to play. It’s difficult for me to teach it. I don’t know how to do that. I am the least suited person to do that. So you need to keep the ball as we did in the previous two matches. That’s the only way to do things.
“Spain deserved to win, and we were never in the game; besides the last 20 minutes of the match, we were never able to create situations which would allow us to compete against a brand of football of this level.”
A few Azzurri had a bad day, especially Giovanni Di Lorenzo, but the CT refused to blame any of his players, insisting that the main issue was the physical sharpness.
“Naturally, if a number of players aren’t at the top of their game, it becomes doubly difficult. If they are not in the game whatsoever, of course Spain could completely dominate proceedings and do so quite comfortably. It was very clear and it came down to the entire team,” he said.
“Two or three individuals may not be up to scratch, that was the case. A number of players weren’t at the top of their game tonight as a team. But when we tried to play the game, we were always quite slow in terms of reaction time. It took too long. Retegui and Raspadori were fresh; they pressed a bit more aggressively towards the end, and therefore, we had the opportunity to win the ball a little forward higher up the pitch, and we were, therefore, able to play a bit more in the opposition half of the pitch, it all comes down to that. Perhaps I should have changed something in terms of what we saw tonight. There’s no point beating around the bush. I didn’t come down to a couple of players. When there were four or five players out there we were able to cause more problems to Spain.
“Some players have not recovered to 100% fitness, and if you are not able to take control of the game, the difference in terms of space is even clearer.”