Luciano Spalletti set to stay despite Italy’s EURO 2024 disappointment

Italian football federation chief Gabriele Gravina has confirmed Luciano Spalletti will stay on as the Italy national team manager.

Luciano Spalletti’s side put in a poor performance on Saturday and got knocked out of the European championships at the hands of Switzerland, who dominated. They couldn’t create much of note and were second best on the day, with Spalletti having taken responsibility of the loss.

Spalletti and FIGC president Gabriele Gravina spoke at a press conference after the knockout yesterday and while Gravina apologised for the defeat, he confirmed that Spallett will stay on as manager.

He said: “We also had a long chat with the coach: I am pragmatic and I think it is unthinkable to solve problems in difficult moments by abandoning a project that from the first moment we said was a three-year project. You cannot think of abandoning a project after 8/9 months of activity. Something needs to change, something needs to be reviewed in terms of approach. There will be deep reflections, last night we started to discuss with Spalletti. We all need to grow.”

Before this, Gravina said: “The disappointment is for a performance and an inability to express what we should have done. And above all, not being able to see first-hand a capacity of the character of our Italian nature, in moments of difficulty, in reacting to some objective limitations that we have always demonstrated, not knowing how to make up for it with a different reaction compared to what we saw first-hand yesterday. We must all reflect on this. A reflection that yesterday, myself, the coach, Buffon and the whole team made together. A disappointment that the boys shared with us, we divided all our responsibilities equally. We have nothing to hide, we are all responsible but we must continue to be so by appealing to a great sense of responsibility”

Before the tournament Gianluigi Buffon had confirmed that Italy’s main goal is the next World Cup and it seems as if the plan remains the same, as the Azzurri now look towards having a better World Cup and to qualify for the first time in the last 12 years.

Kaustubh Pandey I GIFN