“I have great confidence in the Italian team”, Marcello Lippi

Credit: Photo by Icon sport

Marcello Lippi admits he has great confidence in Italy, and explained why he believes Luciano Spalletti is the right man to lead this current squad into the tournament.

The competition is less than a week away, kicking off with Germany-Scotland on Friday evening in. Italy will be in action 24 hours later, playing Albania in Dortmund at 8pm on Saturday. This will be Germany’s first major tournament since the 2006 World Cup, which Lippi and his team won with a penalty shoot-out victory over France at Berlin’s Olympiastadion. Lippi revealed that he hadn’t yet returned to any of the stadiums Italy had played in when it came to winning international football’s most coveted prize. “I have great confidence in this team and its coach. I love this Italy, and I have confidence in the wisdom, intelligence and skill of Spalletti, who showed his level with Napoli. Luciano and I are great friends, I know he respects me a lot and the feeling is mutual. The national team is developing. I’ll be following all the matches with great enthusiasm. I’ve never been back to any of the stadiums in Germany, especially Dortmund. Maybe that will happen in the future, or maybe even for this European Championship,” Lippi told La Gazzetta dello Sport.