Eve day for the Under 21 national team, which tomorrow in Krakow (at 9 pm – live on Rai 1) will face Spain in the semifinal of the European Championship. At 5 pm the Azzurrini will support the finishing training session on the pitch of the ‘Wisla Krakow’ stadium and at 7.30 pm Luigi Di Biagio will meet the journalists at a press conference.
Having conquered the pass for the semifinal thanks to the success against Germany, the Under 21 will now have to contend with the great favorite of this European: Spain was in fact the only national team capable of winning all three matches in the group and in the last match against Serbia, with the qualification already in his pocket, the coach Albert Celades was able to allow himself the luxury of letting all his big names rest, leaving the various Asensio, Saul, Bellerin and Deulofeu on the bench.
Due to the misstep with the Czech Republic, Italy instead had to sweat the qualification until the end and the warnings remedied by Conti and Berardi in the match against the Germans will force the two Azzurrini to watch the match against Spain from the stands.
“We meet a team that according to everyone is the favorite of the tournament – confirms delegation head Gabriele Oriali at the microphone of ‘Radio Anch’io Sport’ on RadioUno – which in the group has won three games out of three and which has scored nine goals and conceded only one. They rested important players and had an extra day off. But we are ready to sacrifice and in football everything is possible, we saw it the other night by winning a match on the prohibitive card and thanks to the tactical masterpiece of our coach we managed to put a great team like Germany in difficulty “.
The last matches between the two most successful national teams in Europe at the Under 21 level (5 continental tournaments won by the Azzurrini, 4 by the Spaniards) saw the ‘Rojita’ prevail, which in 2013 won 4-2 in the final of the European of Israel and three months ago in Rome he beat Di Biagio’s team 2-1 in a friendly match: “In difficult moments – Oriali underlines – the character, the determination of the Italian emerges, who transforms himself when he wears the national team jersey and becomes invincible. I hope it can happen again tomorrow ”.
Even a year ago in France the National Major seemed destined for the role of sacrificial victim with Spain, but in Saint-Denis the goals of Chiellini and Pelle gave Italy the qualification for the quarter-finals. Oriali, Team Manager of a national team capable of entering the hearts of the fans, remembers it well:
“It seems to me that I am reliving what happened at the European Championships. We didn’t start with the underdogs and there was a lot of skepticism around us, but game after game we recreated enthusiasm even at home. It is happening now also here and it is something that gives us pleasure and honor ”.
Confident in the means of a united and talented group (“it hasn’t happened for a long time to have such a competitive Under 21, with regular players in their clubs and who have already experienced the thrill of wearing the blue jersey in the senior national team”), Oriali admits to seeing himself in captain Benassi (“he does a dirty job, from the heart”) and praises the coach Luigi Di Biagio:
“He is a coach who will lead the way. He does everything with passion, prepares the matches taking care of the smallest details, has an excellent relationship with all the boys because he speaks their same language. Here I felt accepted by everyone right away. I felt an integral part of the group and with these guys I am experiencing priceless emotions “.
