Italian coach Luciano Spalletti has vowed to make changes to his team ahead of the final Euro 2024 group game against Croatia, after admitting he did not change things soon enough during the defeat to Spain last time out.
Italy came from behind to beat Albania in their first match of the tournament and Spalletti named an unchanged squad for Thursday’s match against Spain.
However, he made two substitutions at half-time and admitted late on that his team “were never in the game except in the last 20 minutes” following a 1-0 defeat, with Italy registering just one shot on target to Spain’s nine. .
“Of course, after a game like that, there is the notion and the idea of changing the team a little bit,” Spalletti said. “I probably made mistakes by not mixing things up quicker in terms of the performance we produced, but I thought it would be a gamble to tweak something because we saw everything that had been said of late.
“Now that we have noticed that there is a bit of fatigue and rust in terms of results, we will certainly change things up.”
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Left-back Federico Dimarco had been a concern over his availability after training individually ahead of the Croatia game and Spalletti was positive about his chances of playing but said he would face a late fitness test on Monday.
“Dimarco is fit again, so he is available for selection, but tomorrow morning we will have another fitness test to confirm it,” he added.
Italy is guaranteed second place in Group B if it avoids defeat to Croatia, but will leave the competition if it loses and Albania beats Spain.
If they lose and Albania do not win, Spalletti’s team will be third and will have to wait for other results to see if they qualify as the best third place finisher. The Italian coach asked his team to “walk by example” before the decisive group stage match.
“There are certain matches that ultimately determine whether it was a great story or a story to forget, so the glory of your story comes down to matches like this,” Spaelletti continued.
“Talk is cheap, you have to go out and follow the path. “We said things that we couldn’t show against Spain, we have to follow the path and leave words aside.”
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(Claudio Villa/Getty Images for FIGC)
