Luciano Spalletti insists Italy ‘did not deserve’ to lose 3-1 against England, as the problems came when they stopped attacking or were not decisive enough ‘in 50-50 situations.’
The Azzurri had taken the early lead at Wembley Stadium through Gianluca Scamacca’s first senior goal for his country, but Harry Kane converted a penalty, then Marcus Rashford scored on the counter-attack and Kane added a third making the most of a double defensive error.
“It is difficult to comment, because we made some avoidable mistakes, but also created a great deal and could’ve scored more goals,” said Spalletti in his press conference.
“England caused us problems and scored instead. It’s disappointing the way the defeat came about, because the team did not deserve to lose by two clear goals. We must learn from this and improve in physical duels, when there are 50-50 situations we must decide what to do and go for it.
“We did well for almost the entire match, but the difficulties came when we started to defend too deep.”
Spalletti had said before the game that this would be the test to see where Italy are right now in his tenure, so what response did he get?
“If we can complete the intentions we saw today, then Italy are at a good level. If we want to wait and change the attitude, then that will take a little more time. We must build on what we did for most of the game, which was play open and attacking football, scoring goals when we create the opportunities. We must not change that approach.”
Scamacca provides some much-needed alternatives in attack, with Ciro Immobile and Mateo Retegui injured, while Destiny Udogie had his first start for Italy.
“Scamacca played well as long as he could keep up with the tempo, but he hasn’t played much lately due to injury. Udogie did as well as I expected, he just needs to be a little more consistent in his concentration. He was also limited by getting a yellow card, so to avoid risks I substituted him.”
Italy are guaranteed a play-off place regardless, as they won their Nations League group, but can still secure qualification for EURO 2024 directly in second place behind England.
They need to either beat North Macedonia and then draw with Ukraine, or can even lose as long as they beat Ukraine in the final showdown in Leverkusen on November 20.
Considering the Nazionale missed out on the last two World Cups, does Spalletti fear another flop?
“I don’t fear anything and I would be surprised if my players feared it. We have the quality to fight it out with everyone. This is not the result that tells us we cannot dare, that we cannot play the kind of football we are searching for.
“We will continue to play the same way, but clearly there are moments in a match when you have to study and wait. In general, we want to go hard, have real tackles, play in big spaces, have the right tempo and intensity for the whole game. There are in those moments also the moments of inspiration and intuition where you make the most of a situation.”
same comment when we loose we could of won we were on pare we have to learn from this in the fifa standings we should be 25 to 30 from the top
Most old time fans have that “feeling”, best to watch and wait ,to throw tomatoes or “I’am Italian and we got our fifth star and chasing Brazil.
Change the stupid approach of centre backs…… too easy lured out from the box
We italian centre backs can only sit back whatever the world has changed.
Not sure what spaletti was watching the 2nd goal came from an acerbi missed tackle high up the pitch & the third goal came from scalvini’s missed tackle near the halfway line both instances were avoidable as sometimes you have to accept that you can’t win the ball & defend by positioning yourself Bastoni should have provided more cover for Scalvini! The penalty was unfortunate a case of the ball not running for you. The front three were totally ineffective & wouldn’t expect any of them to normally start for Italy Barella worked tirelessly but needed better players around him! I also think Donnaruma doesn’t always sense the danger if he’d had rushed out as soon as the ball broke he may have smothered the ball & avoided the penalty! With Italy so far up the pitch he needs to be more like a sweeper anticipating the long balls over the top!