DORTMUND, Germany – Italy coach Luciano Spalletti said his team “shut down” when Albania scored a record-setting early goal, but praised the way his team recovered to claim a 2-1 victory in their first match of Euro 2024 in Dortmund on Saturday.
Italy came into the game as defending champions, and Spalletti says his team needs to be much more clinical in front of goal if they want to repeat the feat, but he also said his team is building its defense at the Euros by playing “good football.” In the end, goals from Alessandro Bastoni and Nicolò Barella were enough to give Italy the three points after an early scare.
Albania, cheered on by at least two-thirds of the crowd inside the stadium, made Euro history when Nedim Bajrami scored the fastest goal in tournament history after 23 seconds. The goal came after an Italian mistake: Federico Dimarco took a throw-in from the left side, but Italy was slow to react, Bajrami jumped and beat Gianluigi Donnarumma.
“These things can happen because we disconnect,” Spalletti said in his postgame news conference. “But we have to value the desire to try to play football even when things get difficult.
“We just needed to keep things nice and orderly since we were in lockdown.”
Federico Chiesa said the intimidating atmosphere had no influence on Italy's slow start.
“From my point of view in the countryside, there were fewer Italians and a lot of Albanians, but that's wonderful,” Chiesa said. “It's nice to play 'away from home'. That didn't influence us conceding the first goal, which came from a throw-in, but we showed that we wanted to keep the ball instead of throwing it long.”
Spalletti was delighted with the way his team responded and how they recovered around Dimarco. From there, Italy was dominant. Spalletti said he believed “the score does not reflect the difference between the two teams,” but he also sent a note of caution to his team after Albania's Rey Manaj came close to scoring a late equalizer.
“We have to get better; we thought we were better than we were in certain situations,” Spalletti said. “We need to be meaner, we are clean and orderly when it comes to building things, but we have to hurt the opposition. We thought we were brilliant at maintaining possession, but that is something we need to do better.”
Spalletti's Albanian counterpart Sylvinho was reluctant to criticize his players for not maintaining their early lead against the 2021 champions.
“Yes, we could have handled it better, absolutely,” he said. “But we must not forget that we faced a very good team, Italy accelerated the pace a lot. Italy moved the ball quickly.
“It's a shame we couldn't hold out. It's not easy because they are a good team. If we hadn't conceded the second goal, it would have been a good game for us. Unfortunately, we couldn't hold out against Italy.” attacks and it was a tough 25 minutes for us.
Spalletti praised Barella's performance after the Inter Milan midfielder had doubts about an injury ahead of the match.
“I chose him even though he hasn't trained much because that's what it's all about,” he said. “If he drops deep and gets out of congested areas, it's better. He keeps things in front of the defense in terms of quality. He makes us move. He had a wonderful performance.”
Spalletti said Italy will play in a different way when they face Spain next, and Chiesa anticipates a difficult task when the two meet on Thursday in Gelsenkirchen.
“It will be a great game. Spain showed tonight and in the past what a great team they are,” Chiesa said. “We are no worse than them. We will go out and compete for every ball. The coach wants tough players who will fight for every ball as that is what we will need to win the competition.”
Meanwhile, Albania will look to pick up their first points against Croatia in Hamburg on Wednesday, but admitted they regretted not giving their fans more reasons to cheer in Dortmund.
“I was disappointed with the result,” Sylvinho said. “When you prepare for a match and you face a team like Italy, which is so good, we work for 10 days straight to try to win this match or draw.
“The crowd was incredible; two days ago we said the stadium would be red and I saw so many proud Albanians. It's a shame we couldn't equalize at the last minute, but these things happen.”
