Spalletti was irritated by a Swiss journalist who described Switzerland as a Ferrari and Italy as a Panda

He had his bitterness, he also had the… bitterness from the winners at the press conference after defeat by Switzerland in the round of 16 Italy coach Luciano Spalletti. A Swiss journalist asked him how he felt that Switzerland looked like a Ferrari and Italy looked like a Fiat Panda, and the “Azzurri” coach showed his displeasure.

“You have to accept everything. Even inelegant views like yours. Your sarcasm is nice, what can I say… You did a better job than us, we will try to be better next time“, he replied.

Spalletti, however, took responsibility for Italy’s image and stressed the need for structural changes. “I am responsible for what happened. I chose the players and I am not satisfied with our performance in the round of 16 against Spain. For the other two matches I am partially happy with the way we played. All the other coaches had 20 matches before the Euros and some even 30. Me just ten and we were already under pressure. I know we have an obligation to win and I will have to get to know my team better to prepare them even better. We had some injury problems and we lacked intensity against Switzerland. The future of the national team may require different choices. We want players with more athleticism. We struggled a lot with personal duels“, he said.

“I think we deserved to get through our group, which was tough, but we didn’t see a team with a foundation we can build on. I think this is what the experience of this event taught us. The result we brought is not due to one particular thing. You can choose other players, but if we don’t improve in terms of intensity, we won’t see different results. That made the difference with Switzerland. It’s not an excuse. We failed because I made the wrong choices. But it’s never the players fault. The results show that we need to change things“, he added.