Barella
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Barella: ‘I’d be ready to take penalties’

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Inter midfielder Nicolo Barella says he is ready to take penalties if needed, saying it’s better to try and win against Ukraine than draw. The Azzurri know that they only need to avoid defeat in order to qualify for next summers EURO 2024 competition. Speaking ahead of the match, Barella explained that it doesn’t matter where the game is being played, given it’s importance to qualifying:

“There has been little time to recover, but when you play such important matches you find energy that very often you don’t think you have. We are ready for tomorrow’s game, we are charged up.

“Will not training here affect tomorrow’s match? We are quite used to playing on different fields, in different stadiums. It’s such an important match that this aspect goes in the background.”

“What are the differences between Friday’s match and this one? The importance is the same, this match can get us a pass to the European Championships to defend the title. The match with North Macedonia gave us the chance to have destiny in our hands and that is always an advantage. Of course when you start a new journey you always need time and in the national team there is little time. But there was immediately great willingness on the part of the group. We always want to show proactive football and the fact that we conceded two goals in two circumstances testifies to that. But then we reacted and to have won 5-2 is a great confidence boost for us.”

“Penalty takers? Yes, I would be absolutely ready to shoot them but there are penalty takers who are more used to kicking them than me. As for Jorginho, you miss penalties, you score them… We just have to thank him for what he has done in these years, with his experience he has helped us a lot to improve. We can only thank him. Then the coach decides the penalty taker and Jorginho is such an established champion that he doesn’t need our pampering. We didn’t talk about the penalty taker with the coach.

“How do you manage matches like that? It is much easier to manage the game when there is an established result, we will try to win and put the game on our terms. Getting another three points would be another confidence boost, winning a game is not drawing it but we know we can also draw it. At the end of the game we may not have to chase success, but it is always better to try to win it now.”

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