Simone Zaza discussed his Italy nightmare, struggling with life at West Ham and commitment to Valencia. “I need some stability.”
The former Sassuolo, Juventus and West Ham United striker has rediscovered his form at Valencia and earned a recall to the Azzurri, but missed the World Cup play-off with Sweden due to a knee injury.
“It’s fine now and although a lot has been said about my knee lately, it’s a problem that is frequent among players,” he told the Corriere dello Sport.
Simone Zaza discussed his Italy nightmare, struggling with life at West Ham and commitment to Valencia. “I need some stability.”
The former Sassuolo, Juventus and West Ham United striker has rediscovered his form at Valencia and earned a recall to the Azzurri, but missed the World Cup play-off with Sweden due to a knee injury.
“It’s fine now and although a lot has been said about my knee lately, it’s a problem that is frequent among players,” he told the Corriere dello Sport.
“I have a lesion to the external meniscus that I’ve been carrying for a while. Every now and then it flares up, but in general the situation is under control.”
The World Cup play-off would’ve been an opportunity to permanently bury the missed penalty in the Euro 2016 quarter-final shoot-out against Germany and the crisis that followed.
“That moment persecuted me for a while, but then I learned to put it behind me. I have to keep going forward. I had difficulties settling in to the English lifestyle at West Ham, so the problems I had there went beyond the penalty miss.
“I felt very little confidence in me at West Ham. I think a similar situation was felt by players who are now impressing at Valencia, such as Geoffrey Kondogbia, Jeison Murillo, Montoya and Neto.
“In football people tend to give rushed verdicts, both positive and negative, you can’t be a flop one year and a few months later a phenomenon.”
Giampiero Ventura was sacked after the 1-0 aggregate play-off defeat to Sweden, as Italy missed the World Cup for the first time since 1958.
“I hadn’t been on international duty for a year. Things had changed a great deal and I lost many steps in the process. I can say that the fantastic group ethic created at Euro 2016. The skeleton of the side was the same and we still worked the same way.
“On the other hand, you could sense tension. It was a very important moment and the pressure from the outside was strong. Unfortunately, we all know how that ended.
“It was everyone’s fault, not just Ventura. It’s not fair to apportion blame, otherwise we’ll never move on. The objective, and I speak as a fan more than a player here, is to understand what went wrong and rebuild from scratch.
“We have to create an important project for the rebirth of Italian football. This was a huge let-down for all of Italy.”
Does Zaza see himself back in Serie A after impressing with Valencia?
“No, I have a four-year contract and I want to continue here. I’ve changed too many clubs recently and need some stability. Like all Italian players, my ambition is the Nazionale. Now we’ll see what happens.”