Portugal-Italy, Nicolato: “Defeat that is worth a victory”

by our correspondent Alex Frosio

1st of June
– LUBIANA

Paolo Nicolato said on the eve: “I am happy with every position conquered if we did it by giving the best of ourselves”. It is difficult to be happy after such an elimination, yet the coach cannot blame his brave and big-hearted Under 21 team. “We congratulate the opponents, who are of the highest level. In this match there is a winner but the other team is a winner anyway, because they showed great courage, we were very proactive, we created situations and we suffered them. I enjoyed it, the attitude was flawless. I thank my players, they gave me a lot. I embrace them all, even those who weren’t here, they were really important, I will never forget them. We have an inner strength that few teams have, this gratifies us a lot, to see guys honoring the blue jersey ”.

THE MATCH

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“We tried – comments the coach – to play an aggressive game, forward, but taking into account that we would have discovered the defenders. The goal was to get out of the game having made it, without speculating. This led to problems in the defensive phase. , often we were one on one or with a lot of space behind us, then the quality of the opponents was very high. But in general the test satisfies me a lot, it was a commercial for football: it will still be a match to remember. is worth many wins “.