Italy will make changes to advance at Euro 2024, coach Spalletti says

Italy coach Luciano Spalletti promised that his team will make changes for their final group stage game against Croatia at Euro 2024 in Leipzig on Monday.

Italy are in second place in Group B with three points from two games, after coming back to beat Albania 2-1 and losing to Spain 1-0. The scoreline of the latter contest doesn't tell the whole story of how badly the Azzurri were dominated on the field by La Roja.

The Italian team used the same starting lineup for both games, which raised concerns over Spalletti's coaching.

"Of course after a game like that, there is the notion and the idea to change the team a little bit," Spalletti said. "I probably made mistakes in not mixing things up quicker in terms of the performance we produced, but I thought it would be a gamble to tweak anything because we saw everything that had been said in recent times."

The defeat against Spain jolted the coach into action, and ahead of the Croatia clash he said, "Now that we have noticed that there is a bit of fatigue and rust in terms of results, we certainly will change things."

Croatia are in fourth place in the group, with one point after losing to Spain 3-0 and drawing with Albania 2-2. However, they are not completely out of hope to advance to the knockout stage. If they beat Italy, and Albania defeat Spain, Italy will be the team waiving goodbye to Euro 2024.

"There are certain matches which ultimately dictate whether it's been a great tale or a tale to forget, so the glory of your tale comes down to matches such as this," Spalletti said. "Talk is cheap, you've got to go out there and walk the walk. We said things we weren't able to exhibit against Spain, we need to walk the walk and leave talk to one side."