Italy boss Luciano Spalletti has stated that the Azzurri believed in the idea of getting a late equaliser against Croatia in the sides’ 1-1 draw in their final game of the EURO 2024 group stages.
Italy went behind in dramatic circumstances. Luka Modric had a penalty saved by Gigio Donnarumma but seconds later, he put one past the Azzurri goalkeeper to hand Croatia the lead. When hope was fading away in stoppage time for Italy, Mattia Zaccagni came up with a huge goal in the 98th minute to take Italy through to the next round.
The goal came with the last kick of the game and all but confirmed that Croatia will go out of the competition. Spalletti spoke about the game and he told RAI (via TMW):
“We believe in it until the last second, this is how football is now. There are moments that become highlights, by now they were behind and we could hit them from behind even if we missed sensational goals for our quality.”
Riccardo Calafiori’s brilliant run into the final third created the goal or otherwise, the Azzurri would have had to rely on other teams in the other groups to go through.
