One goal decided the derby not only of Group B, but also of the entire tournament so far. The Spaniards were pushed to victory by Riccardo Calafiori, whose own goal tricked Gianluigi Donnarumma and put the Italians in an uncomfortable position, to fight for second place with Croatia in the last round of the group stage.Coach Luciano Spalletti admitted that the rival was “faster and sharper”, above all physically and mentally, and that they deserved the triumph. The Azzurri struggled all match to connect three descent passes, while Donnarumma kept the team level with two gigantic saves until Calafiori accidentally rattled his own net.”I’m not disappointed, but it was clear from the beginning that they are sharper than us. If you don’t respond with the same speed, everything becomes much more difficult. When you play against Spain you have to adapt quickly. It’s very simple, they were faster than us in making decisions, better in pressing, they worked as a team and it all boils down to the fact that we were not on par with them,” said Spalletti and added:”When the feet are not moving, there is no real distance between the players, and character can only take you to a certain point. We were constantly in a gap and when we won the ball, we would quickly lose it again. We did not make decisions in the right way, our reactions always lacked a bit of logic”.##NAJAVA_MECA_8173413##All is not lost for the Azzurri, as they only need one point to advance. Even if the Albanians beat the Spaniards, the Italians have a better head-to-head record.”We have to recover, to analyze everything that happened. We could have made better decisions and been more compact, but they moved faster than us, much faster. The difference was huge and obvious. Mentally we were in a good situation but we lacked phisicality. We competed against rivals who play good football and showed that we can be equally good, but they reacted better. That caused us problems.”The Italians conceded a goal against Albania after 23 seconds, while Donnarumma had to intervene against Spain after only a minute and a half. That’s why journalists asked Spalletti – why does Italy start matches so badly?”As time goes on, you start to lose the rhythm, the sense of why you make certain decisions. Jorginho, Barella and others are good when decisions need to be made, but then we struggled to defend our goal because we wanted to control the games too much and we have the same possession of the ball like Spain. We didn’t succeed in that and that made our job difficult”.De la Fuente confident to say the least: There is no team better than us!And what does Donnarumma say, who once again had to keep Italy from having more than one ball end up in their net?”We made too many mistakes with easy passes and didn’t show quality. If you make so many mistakes then you have to be punished. We are angry, but we have to use all this for something good in the last game. Everything is in our hands, we must not see it as the end of the world. We have a lot to do against Croatia. We have the right attitude towards the game, we just didn’t see it against Spain. If we are more aggressive and make fewer mistakes, it will be much easier. We were good in the last 10-15 minutes, but we have to be like that even earlier. If you leave the initiative to Spain, they will run you over,” said the PSG goalkeeper.The Italians and Croats will meet on Monday at 10:00 PM EAT – the Spaniards will play the Albanians at the same time.It’s family that counts: Nico reveals a special voice message waiting for him after Italy tie
