Marco Materazzi defends Giovanni Di Lorenzo. During an interview granted to today’s edition of Gazzetta dello Sportthe world champion defender with Marcello Lippi’s Italy spoke about the Napoli winger, protagonist of a negative performance against Spain: “I immediately go against the grain – he began – because I know what it means to be in the crosshairs: too much criticism for Di Lorenzo. He faced the most incisive player seen in this European Championship, together with Bellingham on his debut: an ‘animal’, and he was the only one with the leg to keep up with him, choosing that defensive formation.
With Croatia in three or four? Easy to talk about in hindsight. With Croatia, just by drawing, you can cover yourself more and since they give you more points of reference, Mancini could be an asset: he is always ready anyway. But we need to see how the players are doing, Spalletti knows that.
Bastoni and Calafiori, two left-handed players, a problem? Absurd cliché.
With Leonardo we lost the scudetto against Lecce because he didn’t spare Lucio who was receiving a booking, rather than letting me and Chivu play together. Do you know what I told him afterwards? ‘It’s always better to have two left-handed players play together if they know how to make two passes in a row.’ And Bastoni and Calafiori have the feet of midfielders.