Spalletti: ‘I already told Jorginho he will take the next Italy penalty’

Jorginho has missed his last four penalties for Italy, including shoot-outs, but Luciano Spalletti ‘already told him that he will take the next spot-kick and he agreed.’

The midfielder failed to convert in the EURO 2020 Final shoot-out against England at Wembley Stadium, then missed in two different 2022 World Cup qualifiers against Switzerland.

If just one of those had gone in, then the Azzurri would have booked their ticket to the tournament in Qatar.

This evening when leading 1-0 against North Macedonia, the referee pointed to the spot and Jorginho took the ball, had his traditional, hop, skip and jump run-up only for the weak effort to be easily saved.

The Nazionale eventually won 5-2, but Spalletti is still keeping the faith with the Arsenal veteran.

“Jorginho had a great game tonight and a delicate one,” said the coach in a press conference.

“I already told him that he will take the next spot-kick and he agreed.”

Not everyone is so generous, because 1982 World Cup winner Beppe Bergomi was speaking as a pundit on Sky Sport Italia with a very different view.

“With all due respect, Jorginho has to bow down to the evidence here and admit penalties are no longer for him. That style of taking spot-kicks just does not work anymore and today we got confirmation beyond doubt.

“We can appreciate his character and mental strength in going up there again, but I’d say now enough is enough. He has to go to the coach and say let someone else take the next one.”

There were other penalty specialists on the pitch at the time, including Domenico Berardi, who Jorginho did briefly speak to when the spot-kick was awarded.

Back to the press conference, Spalletti continued to praise the mental strength of his players when North Macedonia came back from 3-0 down to 3-2.

“I expected us to suffer, to clam up and try to hang on. Instead we got back to charging up the pitch, turning moves around and scoring goals. Along with the two that we did score, there were several other big opportunities too.”

Italy now need only a draw against Ukraine in Leverkusen on Monday to book their ticket for EURO 2024, but Spalletti is in no mood to rotate.

“We will see how everyone is doing, but it was a good performance and we should work on what we saw tonight. Whoever has the better of the final match will go to the Euros.”