Immobile: “Thought of leaving National. But I’ll be there”

From our correspondent Andrea Elefante

21 September
– Coverciano (FI)

You can dream, indeed you must, he always said. And Ciro Immobile, at 32, has high dreams: to play the next World Cup with Italy and win the Scudetto with Lazio.

ambitions

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“In my career I have never given myself limits: it was confidence and positivity that made me go beyond my technical qualities”. If Lazio were to win the Scudetto they would go much further, “and in fact as a captain I can’t start yelling in the locker room” Let’s win the Scudetto “and I’m not doing it. But that’s my fixed thought at every start of the retreat. the best, we are a growing team, if the Champions League arrives then I won’t be bad. We started well, making mistakes in Europe and losing two points badly in Genoa, but we reached a good balance in defense, as the numbers say, and that’s what Sarri was asking of us. We score less, but we have more points than last year with the defense put in place. Now we have to fix the Europa League after the last fool. ”

National

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Lazio has always been his comfort zone, a kingdom conquered and governed by goals, many, every year. The opposite of what happens to him in the national team, “and I ask myself almost every day: why do I sign minus with the blue shirt? Maybe at Lazio I have more margins for error, here there is more pressure and overdoing it sometimes brings you to do nonsense. Of course it is rosy: I have won the top scorers four times and here I struggle “. He makes you gnaw and even think, and Immobile has no problem admitting it: he has seriously thought about leaving the national team. For two reasons, basically. The first: “The disappointment for not qualifying for the World Cup made me have many doubts, then slowly returning to play with Lazio I realized that I still have something to give to this shirt: it represents everything for those who play football and it must be like this for those who want to do this job. As long as there is need for me, I will be there: I feel like a leader in the locker room and above all I feel obliged to give something to the group, on and off the pitch. age advances, if I am like now I can still give something, even in 2026. It is one of the goals I have set myself “. Mancini, says Immobile, did not need to insist too much to remove any uncertainty: “I think he never had the doubt that I could really leave. My reflections, made together with my family, were more important.”

under accusation

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Evaluations that also concerned the heavy accusations that have always rained down on him, in particular after the failure to qualify for Qatar 2022: the other reason that made Ciro think that it was time to say enough. “To say it like this now is also funny: I am the blue center forward of the non-qualification for the World Cup, not the one of the national team that won the European championship. But it could not have been others who decided in my place. The social world is wonderful, we are a social world, but sometimes it destroys you, and I’m not just talking about the world of football. Often we have gone further, for example with Acerbi, and we have to put a stop to it. It also happened to me when it came to my family, my children: in these cases it is also right to report, I did it “.