New Italy captain Ciro Immobile calls their previous loss to North Macedonia ‘the most painful and burning defeat’ of his career. The Azzurri will be hoping for some payback when the two sides face off again in the EURO 2024 qualifiers tomorrow evening. In his pre-match presser, Immobile touched on taking over the captaincy and why turning down potential offers from Saudi Arabia will allow him to continue playing for the national team:
“Twenty years ago as a teenager I hoped to play with the national team, but becoming captain was a fantastic dream. Now it has come true and I try to hold on to this achievement with the help of my team-mates, because it is also thanks to them that I got this appointment, they saw in me what I can give and so I am very happy”.
“The defeat to North Macedonia in 2022? It was the most painful and burning defeat of my career. Even more than the one against Sweden, because we were coming from a beautiful moment, from joys and strong emotions shared all together, and probably that broke our legs a little bit, because we definitely didn’t expect it. We were too frenetic, too eager to get to the goal straight away and this unfortunately didn’t pay off.”
“Saudi Arabia? Right now I want to continue to live certain emotions with this jersey, to be able to show that I am still able to give so much, then with the European Championship ahead of us we must do it right away”.
