Spalletti admits he will ‘have to change things’ after Italy eliminated from EURO 2024 | OneFootball

Luciano Spalletti admits he will have to ‘change things’ after Italy’s elimination from EURO 2024.

Spalletti held a post-match press conference attended by Football Italia after Italy’s 2-0 loss to Switzerland in the EURO 2024 Round of 16.

The first two questions were quite straightforward. Will he still be the Italy coach and what’s next for the team?

“It’s a natural question; don’t feel guilty for asking me. This is the point,” Spalletti replied.

“It changes nothing to me in the sense that I have the responsibility for what happened. I’ve picked the players. I am not happy with the performance we produced today and the performance against Spain.

“I am partially happy with the other two matches we played. This time I rested them up and changed the team. In the previous game, I blamed it on myself, regardless of team selection, for not making too many changes.”

During his post-match interview with Sky, Spalletti had blamed the “tempo and sharpness” of the team.

“Recently, we tried to train the players in a certain way to have intensity and quick recovery runs because there are methods that can allow for improvement,” he added in his post-match presser.

“In terms of that, I wasn’t overly happy with our responses on the training ground, but these are the players I’ve picked. This is part of the process and I have to say this. All other coaches had 20 matches in charge before the Euros, and somebody else had 30. I had ten and we were already under pressure. It’s only right that we have to win. I probably need to get to know my team a bit better to be able to set things up better. We had a number of players who sustained injuries. In terms of intensity, we were under par, and Switzerland won.

“The future of the Italian team comes down to making different choices; we need players who are more physical,” said Spalletti.

“When you have quality but in terms of tempo, you lose intensity and you can’t sustain it for 90 minutes, it’s natural that you need to bring more physicality and mix things up. We struggled in one-v-one and that made the difference in terms of winning the ball back.”

Does he regret not being braver with squad selection?

“With young players, at the start, people were saying: ‘Why are you picking Calafiori?’ He and Fagioli played because I think they’ve got what it takes.

“We experimented a little bit. Udogie got injured. If there are young players with the potential to leave the other guys on the bench, I’ll be the first to try to find the space to fit them in the team. Having tried out a few things during this experience, I came away with the notion that I have to change things now. It’s not a scandalous result, as you are trying to depict it to be.

“My passion is symptomatic of the utmost respect for everyone. It means showing passion and taking responsibility for the passion you have. When I am told that we produced a scandalous performance against Croatia, I’ll say no. Against Spain, we were under par, but not against Croatia. We made it through a tough group, I think deservedly so. But we didn’t see a defined team in terms of foundations we can build upon. That’s what we’ve learned from this experience at EURO 2024.

“I think the team were timid in terms of the intensity of the game. We didn’t do a good job or maintain a high level of intensity. That’s what I was saying earlier,” he continued.

“You have to pick the team and when you are not able to win the ball back, you need space on the pitch because we don’t have quick defenders who can cover lots of space in behind to chase back and get the shape back in the right way, so you need to afford the opposition a bit of space. What happened tonight didn’t come down to one single cause. You can play with different personel, but if you don’t do more in tempo and intensity, it becomes hard even to compete, and we are under par in terms of intensity.

“I changed six players because I allowed those players to be fresh, yet the tempo was the same. A bit of the rhythm of the game, other because some players are not consistent in terms of how they link up and connect with the team. We are under par in terms of pace for individual players and what you need to compete in games like this so I need to get a handle on that.”

Spalletti had previously claimed that the end of the season didn’t help him either.

“This was a long season for everyone, and everyone dealt with the heat. The Swiss too. I was alluding to something else. Inter won Serie A, and I made sure they were a professional, serious club because Inzaghi kept training the team in a certain way. I was in touch with how often Inter were training and so forth. But perhaps unconsciously or not you are not as applied when you win the league so early. A couple of players got injured as well.

“I picked a lone striker and a 4-3-3 or 3-4-2-1 but we didn’t see the quality that you need to display apart from the first game. A little bit against Croatia in the second half, and when we were forced to play high tempo, we struggled to combine it with players’ attributes and show the quality we have high tempo. We are not doing a good job in terms of interpreting the space the opposition affords us. The big difference was the intensity tonight. It’s not an excuse. We failed because of my team selection and the way I conducted myself. It’s never up to the players. In terms of experience, I was available and able to experiment. Of course, you need more of an engine or you may sit back or don’t press high. It’s hard to play football in those conditions.

“The results have said we need to change things. It’s the footballing verdict and I’ll be forced to do so,” he added.

“When I took charge of Italy I tried to consider a host of different factors. You need experience on the pitch or it becomes very difficult. These are tests that we need to undertake, and I am forced to try things out; there is no alternative. No blame to anyone; the responsibility is mine. I’m always with the players, and I want to thank them for having brought me here.

“It’s an incredible feeling to be here with my players. I have no fear of being here. I have come under pressure from day even since I decided to become a coach.

“I am here and very relaxed to try to compete at this level. I’ve been seeking this pressure day in and day out over a number of years. Maybe I’ve done things the wrong way. In terms of pressure, I tried to put not too much on the player. The responsibility is mine. That’s it.”

In the end a Swiss correspondent asked if it was fair to say that Italy looked like a Panda against a Ferrari-style Switzerland. Spalletti didn’t quite enjoy it.

“You have to accept everything. When you lose, you accept everything. You are a wonderful exponent of sarcasm and you are right, what can I say?” the CT replied.

“You did a better job than us; we’ll try to be better next time, given that we didn’t cause you much of an issue tonight.”