Luciano Spalletti will retain his position as Italy coach despite his team's poor performances at Euro 2024, whose campaign ended on Saturday with a 2-0 defeat against Switzerland in the round of 16.
Gabriele Gavrina, head of the Italian Football Association, confirmed the decision at a press conference on Sunday.
“Spalletti has all our confidence and we will continue to move forward with him. It is not imaginable to change coaches and stop this project,” he said.
“It is a great disappointment. We are all responsible and we will not abandon the project started with Spalletti.”
The former Napoli coach, who won the Serie A title in 2023, has only been in charge of the national team for nine months. In 14 games he has seven wins, four draws and three losses. Two of those losses were in this year's European Championship.
In August he signed a three-year contract until September 2026 and will aim to take this team to the World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
“I haven't been the best Spalletti I could be. Yesterday we took an unacceptable step backwards,” Spalletti said.
“I think I know what needs to be done to fix things. I want to rejuvenate the squad and start working from the bottom up.”
Italy only qualified for the round of 16 after a miraculous last-minute equalizer by Zaccagni in a 1-1 draw against Croatia in the third group stage match.
In their debut, they beat Albania 2-1 and were then dominated by Spain, despite losing only 1-0. In each of their four games at the Euros, they lost.
