In light of the risks faced by the national team starting from the fourth bracket of Euro 2024, coach Luciano Spalletti believes that the players must be focused on the objective and, for this reason, he has decided to categorically prohibit the use of 'the PlayStation' and other video games to those called up.
It is the same coach who led Napoli to win the Scudetto in the '22-'23 season and who will try to lead the national team to triumph in the final phase of Euro 2024 to make things clear to the players who, from now on , will accompany him on the long and tiring preparation journey that will lead us to the next European Championship.
Speaking to the Gazzetta dello Sport, Spalletti made no secret of his attitude strong skepticism towards the use of video games as a pastime for footballers playing for the national team (and not only that) declaring that “we go to Germany to win, not to participate, after all it is our history that requires it. For this reason, some footballers must have believed that Spalletti is one of those coaches who 'barks but doesn't death', yet they are wrong. From now on they leave the PlayStations at home, they no longer take them to pick up“.
The Technical Commissioner of the Italian national team then tries to tone down (but not much) the tone of his reprimand to the players who love video games by explaining that “if they really want to play, I'll invent a little game for them to play to distract themselves at night: they come to me and I give them other tasks to do in the evening, if those done on training days aren't enough. In the national team you stay on track and concentrate… I already have to put up with cell phones, if modernity is staying up until 4am playing PlayStation then this modernity doesn't suit me.”