After beating France 3-1 at the Parc des Princes, Italy head coach Luciano Spalletti is preparing to face Israel in the second matchday of the UEFA Nations League. The Azzurri will take the field at the Bozsik Arena in Budapest, and speaking ahead of the match, Spalletti offered some updates on the status of his squad, the potential starting Xi and what he expects from Israel:
“I read Sacchi’s comments and I consider him correct. He taught us what difficulties we can incur if we don’t prepare well. It will be a totally different match compared to the one against France, that match will be difficult to replicate. I also talked to the team this morning about this trap that could occur if we don’t arrive well like against France.”
“It’s difficult to field the same team from Friday, getting rid of fatigue at a distance of two days is impossible. Now we’ll see how they are, but it’s likely that I’ll change 3-4-5 players.”
“Tonali? We were all open-armed ready to welcome him, for us he’s an important player given his qualities. Now we have him, we’ve seen a new Tonali, very eager to show his quality as a player, a Tonali who has the ability to help everyone on the field because he knows how to do everything. And then his teammates love him very much, having him again in the locker room was also a source of great pleasure for the others.”
“I hear contrasting comments about the discourse that concerns us as a National team. I always start from my thought, namely that a Nation like Italy will always have 20 players to compose a strong team. These assumptions will always be there, regardless of the period. Maybe we need to be good at understanding the moments, for example in this period here we don’t have the true thoroughbred from a technical-football point of view, we don’t have Baggio, Del Piero or Totti. But we have many who know how to do many things, who know how to adapt, a football of sentiment and sacrifice. And these things can make the difference. Friday, more than a team we were brothers who composed a team and that is the key that finds the solution to any difficulty you have.”
“Bastoni plays tomorrow because removing both him and Calafiori becomes complicated. He’s the one who has more experience, he has things that can do good for the whole team. Frattesi is to be evaluated in today’s training, but he says he’s fine and clean. He was substituted earlier, he was spared the most dangerous piece to dispose of. We need to see a bit of the training.”
“When I approached this sport, this game, I always thought that I would find solutions thanks to the qualities of the players and the game. Then I actually often found myself professionals who knew how to fight as well as put quality. At this moment here there was especially a need to go and rediscover this availability, to be strong from a point of view of character, of running, of spirit. Friday I saw many beautiful things, against France we obtained a victory that does good to everyone deserving the attention of the press. I am confident of being able to repropose the football seen in the last match.”
“I tried to be different because what I was doing before was something wrong. We need to know how to interpret what we have done, to know how to reason about it. I have modified some things. However, I saw a group immediately very cohesive, compact. Then the difference was probably also made by the number of players brought, the fact of having left someone out in the past in my opinion disturbed a lot. And then we are bringing the discourse on the possibility of putting different qualities on the pitch: everyone has adapted to do a bit of everything and we have put on the field many different ideas of football. Sometimes we pressed them high, other times we made a very low block returning to the football that historically has distinguished us. But other times we also maintained possession in the middle of the field thus interpreting the football of different schools. Other times we changed the game to then aim at the physicality of the forwards, as England did.
“There’s a bit of the Italian football school, a bit of the Spanish one, a bit English… The ball possession says 53% them and 47% us and it wasn’t easy. Often we went from one side to the other with absolute quality as Dimarco and Tonali did on the occasion of the goal. That’s an action started from the goalkeeper and I hear people saying that ‘finally’ we play Italian style. To me it seemed something more in that action, but then you can simplify everything by saying what you like. That said, we were really good but I want to point out that none of the three goals were scored on the counterattack. We were always compact, united, they seemed to me more like a team of brothers. Everyone knew how to do everything and no one delegated to teammates. Retegui, on Frattesi’s goal, made the ball move between the two center backs perfectly, then it’s clear that Frattesi moved at his best. Quality plays were seen, we demonstrated to be part of a bit of all phases of play.”
“Israel? We’ll need to pay attention to their counterattacks, to the preventive ones because they will grant us space. The fact of being quality midfielders means putting them at the limit of the opponent’s area. Kean is likely to be in the match: not being able to do it all again. Retegui? It’s better to have him do the decisive piece and Kean has shown that he’s fine. Then we’ll evaluate in the attacking midfield, whether it will be Raspadori again or a midfielder, because there are other solutions like Brescianini. The team is fine from a mental and numerical point of view.”
