Italy-Israel: Gennaro Gattuso still not thinking about playoffs

Gennaro Gattuso spoke in a press conference on the eve of Italy-Israel. “We thank the 10-11 thousand people who will be in the stadium tomorrow and I also respect those who are outside– he began. It is sorry that so many families wanted to bring their children, but you also respect those who are outside. We are very happy that the war has stopped”.

Luciano Spalletti complimented the national team coach by talking about lightness: “I do not know the word lightness from what it comes, I came here and I knew what I wanted to do. What path to take. Being able to work with desire and a sense of belonging, that is what I am trying to give the boys. During practice I&#8217m a breaker, but then afterwards we let them loose. I talk during the videos, but then we talk about soccer when we have to talk. The space is all theirs. Even me as a soccer player they had to leave me quiet. The merits are all from the players, I see them with desire. Bastoni could have gone straight home yesterday and instead left this morning, Moise could hardly recover and yet even today he left only after having lunch with the team. Now we have other players in whom we strongly believe, the management is this one”.

“I only had the doubt about whether or not I could hold up the two strikers and I must say that I am happy with the work they are doing – added the Azzurri coach. They chase the opponent, they constantly climb and go to the outsides. They do great volume. My biggest concern was being able to support them, and they were ready. Pio has incredible numbers, not just Retegui. The choice of the two strikers was dictated by the fact that we had to score goals: we studied it and it came out for that reason here. There&#8217s a logic, there&#8217s a work with my staff behind it. The timing also led us to make a choice like this”.

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Wrong to talk about playoffs: “We have to get to the playoffs. Let us think about what we have to do. We have not yet prepared anything with the Federation, the president is superstitious and the’other day when he heard this he told us all to go to hell”.

Francesco Pio Esposito is a candidate for a jersey from 1′: “We will definitely do something different than in Estonia and then we will see. We have to be careful, it is undeniable that they have quality with the two outside forwards. They have players who jump over the man with ease and we have to be careful about that. Pio deserves everything, I have already said everything. Let&#8217s see today how everyone is. If we see his historical Pio played 75 minutes plus recovery: there are those who start from the beginning but even in the running game there are players who can give us a big hand”.

“Before the four goals in September I knew they could put us in trouble and that will be the case tomorrow as well. When they target you and you can&#8217t work at doubling, they take you to the last 16-20 meters and that&#8217s the mistake we made. You need courage, but a month ago something we did wrong. We could have done better. We know we cannot make the mistakes of a month ago” concluded Gattuso.