Marco Verratti felt there was excessive criticism of Italy after a 1-0 win over 10-man Malta. “We got the points.”
Marco Verratti felt there was excessive criticism of Italy after a 1-0 win over 10-man Malta. “We got the points.”
The Azzurri have a 100 per cent record after three Euro 2016 qualifiers, but scraped past Azerbaijan 2-1 and this evening struggled to win 1-0 in Malta.
“We are top of the group after three games, so can now work in a more relaxed manner,” the PSG midfielder told Rai Sport.
“We’ve been working with the Coach for only four matches in total, so it is taking time to get to know his football.
“The points are important in football, we know that we have to improve, but we can gain confidence from these wins.
“I was being man-marked in the first half, while after the break I was given a little more freedom to play the ball. I got a few important passes wrong when I could’ve sent teammates clear on goal, so that was disappointing.”
This was Verratti’s chance to prove himself in the deep-lying midfielder role in place of Andrea Pirlo, but he did not step up sufficiently.
“I know that I don’t have a secure spot in the Italy line-up and there are some great players ahead of me, but it is up to the Coach to make his decisions and I am at his disposal.
“I doubt any of us are 100 per cent satisfied, but in football when you lose then you’re considered useless and when you win it has to be 6-0. We hit the woodwork four times and got the points, which is what matters.
“We certainly wanted to put in a better performance, but nowadays no games are easy. Croatia won 6-0, but Holland lost 2-0 to Iceland and Spain fell against Slovakia. In Italy we are accustomed to being criticised, so we take it and move forward.”