A match that started badly and ended well with a few too many worries and many wasted opportunities. In the end the Italian coach Luciano Spalletti he sees the glass half full and shows that he is “happy” because “we won a game that could have been won even better, sometimes we behaved lightly, we always have a mess in our hands if we aren’t concentrated”.
For the coach, in this 2-1 which means a good start in a European Championship with such a difficult group, «many good things were seen, but they must lead somewhere. Otherwise, if they remain an end in themselves, they are useless. We didn’t go in the direction of finishing the action as soon as possible, we built but then went back. We have changed the idea of the way to do harm too often and too quickly.” Then Spalletti adds «they were doubly good, they participated in what was the mistake of their teammates. We all do the same thing, we are a team that does everything together, even the mistakes, we participate in both the goal and the error. Stretcher? He was good at playing a double role together with Jorginho. But sometimes we liked each other too much. They never got the ball in the middle of the pitch and remained quite distant.” Then in the press conference Spalletti returned to Di Marco’s mistake: «We made a mistake but it can happen and the desire to go and play even in a difficult situation should be appreciated. That ball just needs to be cleaned, many other times they have been good at getting out of that situation. When a doubt arises they must be good at creating a dirty ball. Then they were good at not opening their arms to point out their teammate’s mistake. The important thing is not just to win but to play well.”
Great performance by Nicolò Barella: «It was a strange start, conceding a goal after 23” can make your head hurt. But we reacted, we could have scored more. The important thing was to start on the right foot. In the end we also got a little tired.” And Enrico Chiesa remembers the magical night in London: “I had a flashback to Wembley – says the Italian striker, recalling the lightning goal scored by England in the final 3 years ago – We could have scored more, but winning the first match was important”.