Luciano Spalletti has confirmed that Italy will always use a back three/back five system moving forwards, as he wants to ‘remove any doubt’ and take some of the pressure away from his players.
The national team head coach sat down for his press conference at Coverciano on Monday afternoon, ahead of Italy’s upcoming fixtures against France and Israel in the Nations League.
Spalletti spent much of his presser reflecting on Italy’s shortcomings at EURO 2024, and he feels that one of the reasons for the team’s poor performance was due to an overloading of information and demands.
“I probably put too much pressure on them and I did not give them the opportunity to enjoy the experience in an Italy shirt. I have to be careful with trying new things, or trying to bring a new message,” Spalletti said on Monday.
“I think this is the time to try something different. This, inevitably, means excluding some players. I am going to create a new group, a new team, putting less pressure on them and hopefully they feel the beauty of the Azzurri shirt even more.”
Spalletti confirms Italy formation moving forwards
In order to correct the previous errors moving forwards, Spalletti intends to use a similar system in each game and give his players more creative freedom on the pitch.
He intends to always use three central defenders and wing-backs, but there will still be opportunities to switch between a singular centre-forward and a two-man strike partnership.
“Among the requests that were slightly too demanding was our defending in a four and building with a three, changing systems during the match and that was probably a mistake.
“I want to remove this doubt now, we will always play 3-5-2 or 3-4-2-1. If you play the game with two strikers, it becomes easy, starting with 3-5-2 or 3-5-1-1, or 3-4-2-1.”
Everything Spalletti said during Italy press conference: ‘I will create a new team’