During the interview granted to the official UEFA website, the Italy defender Gianluca Mancini spoke about the legacy left by Bonucci and Chiellini: “I’m no longer young, but Bastoni and Calafiori are playing and they’re doing it very well. Then there’s me, Buongiorno and Federico Gatti who are there to be ready when the coach he will give us a chance either when we have to enter the game or in any way. We are a cohesive and compact group.
Donnarumma? We all know Gianluigi. He has been one of the strongest goalkeepers in the world for many years, he is confirming it and having him behind gives us a great deal of extra confidence, you can see it on the pitch. Four-man defence, three-man defence? Let’s only talk about the initial module because then during the match the modules are changed based on the progress of the match, based on the players you are going to face. For the last match we started with 3-5-2. The first two with a four-man defense but then on the pitch we built a three-man defense. Football today goes like this, there is no precise form but it is the adaptations that the players make on the pitch to try to bring the match towards its tracks.
The ‘right’ side of the board? Yes, honestly yesterday when the matches ended we saw a photo of the scoreboard on social media. We have seen that on the left side there are many strong teams. But in reality there are equally strong ones on the right side too.”