“Thank you, Gigio, and thank you Albania. And now I can start. Let’s not give up: we’re not much, but neither are those beaten by Spain. And then we’re still alive, at least I think. After all, we only lost on an own goal (I swear that this was intended to be, and is, a joke). And, if we don’t take them from Croatia too, we’ll move on to the round of 16 as second in the group.” Thus begins the director’s usual editorial Corriere dello Sport, Ivan Zazzaroniwho commented on Italy’s bad defeat against Spain while still trying to see the glass half full.
“Reset: let’s go back to the initial moment, to when we thought we were strong after the success over Albania. With that ‘podemos’ on Wednesday I had chosen optimism. So, to feel (and feel) better, so as not to present ourselves defeated at the start I wouldn’t have imagined, however, that the national team could suffer a lesson of this magnitude. Spain hid the ball from us for almost the entire match: we saw it at the beginning and in the last ten minutes we handed it over to our opponents who outclassed us physically, in terms of running, attention and organisation”, continued Zazzaroni, underlining how, despite trying everything, the Italian coach Luciano Spalletti was unable to change the team’s inertia. ‘encounter.