Comment | The Italian coach opened up a fascinating view in his mind and explained how Italy can win

Dortmund

When In the upper stand of Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion, a spectator throws a pint in the air while celebrating a goal, it takes about a second for the beer to hit the necks of reporters in the press stand below.

As the cheap lager sloshed onto my back and onto my computer screen, I quickly looked at the game clock. At that moment, 23 seconds had passed, and Albanian scored a second earlier Nedim Bajram fanned at the same time on the field.

The goal was preceded by Italy’s only big mistake, when a winger Federico Dimarco threw the ball to Bajram’s running line.

Albania’s surprise was the fastest finish in EC tournament history late on Saturday evening. After that, Italy did what Italy usually does. It controlled the ball, looked for gaps in Albania’s defense, moved the opponent to the desired positions with passes and scored the two goals needed for the victory in the second half.

There were like two Italians on the field, because the best of the Albanian team are seasoned players in Serie A. The difference between the players is the quality of their club teams. Albania has only a couple of players playing in Italy’s top teams, and Italy a dozen.

If the struggle seen on the field in Dortmund was interesting and entertaining, so an even more fascinating performance was seen at the press conference after the match. Just after midnight Finnish time, Italy’s head coach Luciano Spalletti65, opened a fascinating view into his mind.

Spalletti started his speech about the difficult situation in the first minute.

“You could see it in the way our players spoke in the right way and didn’t look in pain. They didn’t highlight their teammate’s mistake. They said don’t worry mistakes happen and let’s keep playing. Such moments should be shared, like a goal scorer sharing his ventilation with the fans. They showed that they have as much character as skills,” Spalletti praised his players.

Spalletti’s speech became an almost stream-of-consciousness philosophical musing on the nature of football as he talked about how Italy’s midfielders moved the ball with short passes.

“They may seem like useless passes. But they actually create space in other areas of the pitch. Everything that happens on the field is connected,” said Spalletti.

Italy’s 1-1 equalizer came in the 11th minute of the game, and the 2-1 goal that became the winning goal just five minutes later. Picture: Pan Yulong / ZUMA

Then we come to why the reigning European champion is not among the tournament’s biggest favorites this time. Italy can masterfully hold the ball, but just as masterfully they cannot decide attacks.

Italy must play like Italy, that was Spalletti’s core message.

“They tell me that ‘coach, only winning matters’. No, only good football matters.”

Spalletti admitted moments later quite openly that Italy are underdogs against certain teams in this tournament.

“In order to succeed, we have only one route. If we don’t play good football, there are better teams here than us. We have to find different solutions to close the gap between us and certain teams – everyone knows that.”

“Only the way we play can save us.”

And even that is not necessarily enough when there are too many stronger teams in the tournament. Italy lacks top-danger forwards, and therein lies the main reason why it doesn’t seem to reach the medal positions this time.