Against Ireland, Tuesday 15th in Trieste, the Italian Under 21 team will need a point to secure their ticket to the final phase of the European Championship, but Carmine Nunziata he doesn’t want to make calculations and he reiterated this today in the press conference: “We need to go on the pitch and try to win the match, continuing to play our football – the coach’s words at the opening of the meeting -. We have a few more days to prepare a single game and we’re happy to work on our concepts: this is the best way to approach the match against Ireland.”
On the latest arrival: “Palestra is a new boy but he has done his entire career with the youth national teams. We are talking about an interesting boy with excellent qualities. We will try to improve what we have been doing for a year, remaining convinced that the difference will be made by mentality and the desire to achieve the objective. Also because we will have a good team up front, which has proven to be good along the way. Our first objective is to qualify, then we will think about the European Championship.”
A qualification that could also arrive on Friday evening in the event of Norway’s victory in Ireland: “We will obviously watch the match, and if good news comes we will be happy. But our minds will have to be focused only on our match: the results depend on us, and for to reach them we will have to take advantage of every single training session, also because this is a group that has important values on a technical and moral level. Pisilli called up by Spalletti must be a stimulus for everyone, because Spalletti is very attentive to the boys.”
On the journey that began 13 months ago: “We knew we were in a difficult group with strong teams. The only regret is the first match, the one in Latvia, which left a bad taste in our mouth. In the end we knew we would get there to the last match to play for qualification.”