Head coach of the Italian national team Luciano Spalletti commented on the team’s defeat against Switzerland in the round of 16 of the playoffs of the 2024 European Championship (0:2).
I am responsible for what happened. I was selecting a team. I’m not happy with the performance shown tonight. Dissatisfied with the performance against Spain. I was partly happy with the other two matches, I rested the players and changed teams, while in the previous match I blamed myself for not having made enough changes because we needed to maintain such a high intensity.
It’s part of the process. All the other coaches had played 20 games before the Euros, I had only played ten and we were always under pressure. I will probably need to know my team a little better to prepare better for the game. We also had some injured players that I was counting on.
In terms of intensity we were below our level and Switzerland was a worthy winner. The future of the Italian national team is now entrusted to difficult choices. We have quality, but when you lose intensity for 90 minutes it is natural that you think that you need to change and add something on a physical level.
We tried some things in this tournament, but I felt like I had to change something. This is not as scandalous a result as you might imagine. We got through a difficult group. But they didn’t see a team that had individuality in terms of fundamental principles. And that’s what we learned at Euro 2024.
