We Don’t Fear Croatia; We Respect Them – Says Alessandro Bastoni

Italy Defender, Alessandro Bastoni, expressed confidence that Italy will face Croatia without fear on Monday as they hope to keep their European Championship title defense alive.

Luciano Spalletti’s team must avoid defeat against the 2022 World Cup semi-finalists to secure a top-two placement in Group B and advance to the round of 16.

Croatia needs a win in Leipzig if they are to progress to the knockout phase.

“You don’t feel fear in football, you feel fear when you’re diagnosed with an illness, not in football,” Bastoni told a pre-match press conference on Sunday.

“We don’t have fear for Croatia, we have respect for them.”

Italy could be eliminated in the group stage for the first time since 2004 on Monday if they lose and Albania defeats Spain in the other concluding group match.

If Spain manages to avoid a surprising defeat, a loss would leave Italy in a tense situation, waiting nervously to see if they progress as one of the top third-placed teams.

In a surprising turn, the Azzurri appeared lackluster in a 1-0 defeat against Spain in their previous match, managing just one shot on target in a one-sided game.

Spalletti said he would make changes to the starting XI which struggled earlier this week.

“After a game like that there is the notion and there’s an idea to change the team a little bit,” said the former Napoli boss, whose side is on three points after starting their campaign with a 2-1 win over Albania.

“I probably made mistakes in not mixing things up quicker in terms of the performance we produced but I thought it would’ve been a gamble to tweak anything.”

“Now that we’ve noticed that there’s a bit of fatigue, there’s a bit of rust, we certainly will change certain things.”

Italy’s current squad is less experienced compared to their Euro 2020-winning team, as only six out of the 17 players from the victorious final against England three years ago are included in the squad for the tournament in Germany.

“Even though many of them are young players and they’re involved in an extreme match like this for the first time, I think I’ve seen the right conduct in terms of going out there to put things right and to show we’ve learned a lesson as well,” insisted Spalletti.

“We said certain things we weren’t able to exhibit against Spain, so we need to walk the walk and leave talk to one side.”