Italy head coach Antonio Conte addresses the media ahead of the clash with Belgium
The Azzurri are set to take to the pitch against the #1 side in the world, Belgium tomorrow in their capital city of Brussels.
Coach Conte, had this to say on the newly crowed ‘top of the world’ nation.
“We’re expecting a good game against a team that are now among the favorites for the tournament. Belgium have very talented players; they recently finished third in the U-17 World Cup. Hats off to them for what they’ve done in minimal time, bringing players from the youth national teams to the senior team. There is a lot of important and organised work behind that, it’s almost enviable. I’ve read somewhere that they have training centers not only for amateurs, but also for professional players: In Italy and in many other countries it’s very difficult to involve the clubs. We have to insist on improving our academies; we constantly control our youth sides, but it would be extremely difficult for us to carry out a project like Belgium’s. They made an enormous jump in the rankings from 67th to first in just a few years.”
Read the predicted starting XI’s for Belgium and Italy here.
“We’re on the eve of an important match, we want to test ourselves against the best teams. We’ll try our best tomorrow. Whatever the final score will be, we won’t have to lose heart or get too excited; we just have to understand how far we’ve come, what we’re doing and what we can achieve. It will be a ‘friendly’. They’ll definitely be motivated to face a team with such rich history like Italy. Personally, I’ll be experimenting tactically ahead of the EUROs. Beyond the final score, which is obviously important, what we want to do is play football and dictate the games. If Belgium eventually prove better than us, we’ll acknowledge that. I’m very happy with all the players called up so far, they’ve always demonstrated a lot of determination. I reiterate once more: in order to achieve extraordinary things, you need extraordinary men and players in the first place. This is my creed and I’ll always follow it.”
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