La Rai, Italian state television, premiered this Thursday “Sogno Azzurro”, a documentary about the Nazionale’s adventure in Euro 2020, with unpublished images from the changing rooms. Several talks by Roberto Mancini were unveiled and his ability to foresee the development of the matches is impressive. The coach predicted a very tough meeting with Austria, a calmer one with Belgium, while, before Spain, he warned his boys that the night was going to be very long, something he also knew Giorgio Chiellini: “Spain gave us many sleepless nights and many disappointments“.
This was the coach’s speech a few hours before the appointment with the Red: “Let’s see guys, here we are again. It will be a great game, we fight, we work and sometimes we get angry to get to nights like this. First of all, We must be happy to play a game that will be nice and tough, but I am sure that you will do what you have to do, because you are the best. We will all have to press hard together, but if we have to defend, we defend. You are in the field, you know better than I when the moment is and if you make a decision, it is the right one. In games, you can’t always command the game. It is what we would like, but there are also rivals. Sometimes you have to suffer and, in those moments, you have to be united. If you have to wait, wait, and when they start to play … Calm down, let them do it. If they stay up there playing, they won’t create problems for us. Spain has a great squad, You will see that the World Cup is up for us, they, and maybe some other team. They are very good players, young, but very good. It will not be an easy game, we will have to suffer until the end and we will try to do it together, as always. And remember: you are the best. Lucky!”.
The documentary also revealed some comments from the Azzurri the day after the game. Pessina said “I dreamed of Busquets, I thought he was in my bed” and Donnarumma replied: “Did he make you a pipe?”. Chiellini expressed his suffering thus: “From 60 ‘to 90’ I couldn’t push any more, I couldn’t. Is that we did not have a moment of pause”. Immobile was the one who suffered the worst: “I spent 60 minutes running after the ball without ever touching it …”.