Luciano Spalletti confirms Italy will be ‘doing something modern’ with their tactics in friendlies against Venezuela and Ecuador ahead of Euro 2024. ‘We finally have time to work.’
The Azzurri are in the United States, where they will play Venezuela on Thursday evening in Fort Lauderdale, then Ecuador in New Jersey on Sunday.
After qualifying for the European Championships in Germany, this will be his first opportunity to focus on performance and experimentation rather than simply needing a result to get through.
Part of that will involve adapting the tactics from his traditional 4-3-3 to a three-man defence.
“In football nowadays there is this tendency to favour players or teams who are capable of interpreting different systems within the same match, so we need to do something modern too,” Spalletti told the official FIGC social media channels.
“Before we didn’t have much time, so we focused only on one system. Even when we lost, I would say we had to stay in there, nothing changes, because we had to get one thing fully in focus. Now that we have this space of two friendly matches, we need to go and try something different and make a few experiments.”
There are nine rounds left in the Serie A season, while Milan, Roma, Atalanta and Fiorentina are still in the running for European silverware. Will the form towards the end of the campaign influence Spalletti’s decisions for the Euros?
“Everything has an influence. We will pay attention to the training sessions and matches of teams, we will see what happens in these two friendlies, we’ll go and see someone new as well, because there is always the chance to get in there.
“In fact, as this is Italy and we need to keep getting stronger and fresher, clearly we will experiment and then see what the results are.”
Tennis champion Jannik Sinner visited the Azzurri squad in Fort Lauderdale, where he was also present for the upcoming Masters tournament.
“He is a great example and a perfectly normal young man who managed to get close to being number one in his sport. Yesterday he showed us that in order to get to the top of the world, you don’t just have to be at the top in training or in matches, but also in the hours that are outside your sport.
“He has this great mentality and also wanted to change his trainer to get more out of himself. He knows where he wants to go.”
Today the Italian football world was in mourning as it paid its respects to Fiorentina director Joe Barone, who died yesterday of a heart attack.
“We are all close to the Barone family and Rocco Commisso’s family too. We know what we have lost in our sport. He influenced football more in these five years as director general of Fiorentina than many others did in a lifetime, others who didn’t do half of what he achieved. The Viola Park structure is testament to that, the example of what it means to be a great entrepreneur.”
Il Ct Luciano #Spalletti a 24h dal prossimo impegno degli #Azzurri contro il #Venezuela 🎙️#Nazionale 🇮🇹 #VivoAzzurro pic.twitter.com/4nfBX6kaFt
— Nazionale Italiana ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@Azzurri) March 20, 2024