"It's my responsibility". Spaletti commented on Italy's failure at Euro-2024

Luciano Spaletti has commented on Italy's failure at Euro 2024. The European champions left the tournament after defeat to Switzerland (0:1) in the 1/8 finals.

"I think the team were timid in terms of the intensity of the game. We weren't able to maintain a high level of intensity. When you cannot win the ball back, given that we don't have a lot of pace at the back, we had to give them space on the pitch. Occasionally, we won the ball back but we didn't do a good job of keeping the ball.

We tried a few things at these finals, but I come away with the notion that I have to change things. It's not as scandalous a result as people will make out. We made it through a tough group. But we didn't see a team with a personality in terms of fundamentals. And that's what we have learned from this experience at EURO 2024.

This is part of a process. All of the other coaches had 20 matches in charge before they had this EURO; I only had ten and we were always under fire – 'you have to win, you have to win'. I probably need to get to know my team a bit better to be able to set things up better. We also had a number of players who had injuries who I was counting on.

I have responsibility for what happened; I picked the team. This is part of a process where I get to know players. I am not happy with the performance we produced tonight. I'm not happy with the performance against Spain. I was partly happy about the other two games. I rested them up and changed the team, whereas in the previous game I blamed myself for not making enough changes because we had to keep that high intensity." quotes Spaletti UEFA.

After today's defeat, the Euro 2020 champion left the continental championship already at the stage of 1/8 finals.

In the quarterfinals Switzerland will play against the winner of the pairing England - Slovakia.