Various Italian Problems Before The Quarter-finals Of The UEFA Nations League

Luciano Spaletti had a lot of homework before the quarter-finals of the UEFA Nations League (Instagram/@azzurri).

JAKARTA - Italy lost 1-3 to France in the last match of Group 2 League A UEFA Nations League 2024/2025 at home last weekend.

The Azzurri manager, Luciano Spaletti, admits that the defeat undermined the confidence of his team considering they had never lost in the previous five matches (four wins and one draw).

Luckily, Italy was still able to secure the group runners-up position with the same points as France, only losing the goal difference. The place was enough to secure a ticket to the quarter-finals in March 2025.

However, Spaletti saw that the next homework was to restore the confidence of his troops before looking at the last eight.

"Overall evaluation, this period is undoubtedly positive. We also saw some good things (in the match against France)."

"However, it is clear that this defeat caused several problems in terms of confidence. This should not eliminate this belief because we have shown it several times," Spalletti told RAI Sport.

The problem is, the group's runner-up position places Italy in Pot 2 in the draw for the knockout phase later.

This means that the Azzurri will likely meet other group winners, such as Germany, Spain, or Portugal.

If they become group winners, the quarter-finals would not be so steep because of the possibility of meeting the Netherlands, Croatia, Scotland, Poland, Denmark, or Serbia.

However, Spaletti is reluctant to regret it. The most important thing now is to increase the confidence of the players as well as find solutions to several mistakes throughout the group phase.

The 65-year-old coach saw the Azzurri weak in accepting set pieces. Throughout the group phase, Italy has conceded six of the eight in the situation.

Against Les Bleus, Italy conceded from a corner when the game had only been running for two minutes.

The other two French goals were also obtained from the free kick scheme. This is clearly a real problem for them.

"Unfortunately, this is the situation. You should be able to have a more relaxed atmosphere with less pressure. You concede immediately from a corner."

"We then tried to force it back in and spend a lot of energy. Maybe it just happened that we conceded so many set pieces."

"It was a balanced game. We felt we could bounce back, but then after another set of goals, France was very tight and it was difficult to find space," Spalletti said again.

In addition, Spaletti also saw weaknesses in the midfield sector. His students could not reduce the opponent's attack on the second line. As a result, it also made Italian possession decrease.

"The most problem for us is that the midfielders don't 'clean up' the ball."

"We need more quality in possession of the ball, to take it back in a narrow space, but we didn't do it enough," said the coach.

There is still enough time to solve various problems in Italy. Spaletti had to make sure his homework was done considering they would face a strong team in the quarter-finals later.