Just a few more hours and we will have to seriously enter the Swiss climate for Italy. The Euro 2024 round of 16 begins on Saturday and the Azzurri will make their debut, called upon to banish the recent nightmares that arose when they had to face the Swiss team. Riccardo Calafiori will not be there, suspended for a series of yellow cards, one of the candidates to take his place, Alessandro Buongiorno, spoke at a press conference reiterating once again the importance of the goal scored by Zaccagni against Croatia, without which Spalletti’s national team would have already been eliminated in the group stage.
And also the anti-Croatian hero, Zaccagni precisely, he had the opportunity to express the satisfaction he experienced with the very important goal. Interviewed by the UEFA portal, he also dwelt on the ‘comfortable’ scoreboard that according to many Italy would have for the direct eliminations: “Of course, looking at the scoreboard you can say that it is quite favorable but we have already seen in this European that everyone is playing with everyone else and that the less famous teams are putting the big teams in difficulty, so we will have to stay focused and see match after match. Among the surprises I really like Austria, but Switzerland is also very strong”.
Meanwhile, some signals are arriving from training behind closed doors, in which Spalletti tried the three-man defence. To take Calafiori’s place, Mancini is the favorite. The referee of the match will also be appointed, the Polish Marciniak. Meanwhile, the match against Italy is also being talked about on the Biancocrociate campus: if Freuler has partially corrected his statements from the day before, his Bolognese teammate Aebischer is looking forward to the match against the host nation.