After the draw with Croatia which gave Italy qualification to the round of 16 of Euro 2024, Gianluigi Buffon – head of the Azzurri delegation – spoke to UEFA microphones, focusing on the match in Leipzig and the one in Berlin against Switzerland: “It was a beautiful evening that is worth experiencing because it gave me a wonderful emotion. In my opinion we played an excellent match. We went behind undeservedly because we had done something more than them and we had given the sensation of being more square. Then the episodes are those that determine the results and the history of the team having to chase Croatia and a qualification that was becoming really complicated. But we were good because we never got upset, we managed to stay organized by rationally trying to equalize with game ideas and in the end with a pinch of goodness luckily we succeeded.”
Luka Modric’s disappointment. “Football can be cruel. In my career I have won a lot and lost a lot. But every time you have lost you must not have regrets or remorse because every time you have won, there has always been someone else who has lost, Modric has won so many things that every now and then it can go wrong. Winning all the time is not educational. Obviously, losing like this also hurts, but it has happened to us many times football at certain levels has this type of burn. Yesterday it went well for us and it went badly for them.”
What did you like most about Italy in this group stage? “The sense of self-sacrifice, the character, the goalkeeper we have. How the boys interpret these commitments with seriousness and soul. And I also really liked the work done by our coach with his staff. I must say that in my opinion we are doing the maximum to try to reach the maximum. We haven’t reached it yet but they are working hard to do it.”
What is missing to reach that maximum? “The turning point match is missing, the one that gives you conviction, security, trust, enthusiasm. In the wake of the last 30 seconds of yesterday we are going to face this complicated match against Switzerland, hoping to ride this long wave of great adrenaline and enthusiasm that the match against Croatia left us.”
What game will it be? “Switzerland is a tough team that is very difficult to beat but that occasionally has some difficulty in winning. Against them they are always balanced matches. Switzerland is one of those teams against which if you play with 7.5 you win, with 6.5 you draw , while if you play from under 6 you lose. This is because their performance is always very continuous and of a certain standard. Then they have many players who play in Serie A and there are no secrets in recent years, we have played against each other many times that this time it goes the way we Italians hope it goes.”
Donnarumma vs Sommer “Gigio is giving us a great hand in this European Championship. We need to be clear and give credit to those who are doing something special. He is really giving us a great hand. Sommer is another of those goalkeepers who in recent years has found a very high quality of performance and has become one of the reference goalkeepers in the world.”