Donnarumma: ‘Italy made mistakes, but destiny still in our hands’ | OneFootball

Gianluigi Donnarumma admits Italy ‘made too many mistakes’ in the 1-0 defeat to Spain, but their EURO 2024 ‘destiny is still in our hands.’

While Luciano Spalletti had said he wanted his team to take the initiative, that really did not play out in Gelsenkirchen.

La Roja dominated possession for most of the match and Donnarumma kept the scoreline down, along with the woodwork, beaten only by an unlucky ricochet off Riccardo Calafiori.

“We misplaced too many easy passes and did not show enough quality, so if you make that many mistakes, you are going to be punished,” Donnarumma told RAI Sport and Sky Sport Italia.

“We are angry, but we have to use this determination in the final game.”

The three points send Spain through to the Round of 16 as group winners, but a point against Croatia on Monday would be enough to secure second place.

This is because even if Albania beat Spain, the Azzurri have the superior head-to-head record.

Donnarumma has faith in Italy

“Our destiny is still in our own hands, we mustn’t see this as a total disaster. We have a lot to do against Croatia, but I am convinced we can do it.

“The attitude was right, we worked hard – perhaps didn’t work well, but hard – and we know that we must do better. We were aggressive, but our biggest errors were when we had possession, as we gave it away again too easily.

“In the last 10-15 minutes we did better, made them run, but we should’ve done it much earlier. If you let Spain just take the initiative for the whole game, they’ll run riot.”

Italy beat Spain in the EURO 2020 semi-final on a penalty shoot-out, but how have the teams changed since then?

“I think we were too hasty trying to push forward and they pressed well too, so we just couldn’t keep the ball or take the pressure off. Spain are a great team, we all know if you let them pass it around, they will hurt you.”

Although the ultimate possession statistics were only 57 per cent to 43, it certainly did not feel like that during the match, when Spain were constantly pinning the Nazionale back.