Italy vs Macedonia - Ventura: I'm more interested in desire

Posted Friday, October 06, 2017 by PA

Italy coach Giampiero Ventura brushed aside questions about his side's formation ahead of Friday's critical World Cup qualifier against Macedonia.

Ventura has controversially favoured a 4-2-4 formation - something not used by any Serie A side - but its limitations were horribly exposed in the 3-0 loss to Spain during the last international break.

With Italy's chances of avoiding the play-offs to reach Russia 2018 slim, Ventura has been tipped to change the shape of his team for the matches against Macedonia and Albania, but was giving nothing away on Thursday.

"Formation? I'm interested in desire and enthusiasm," he said in a press conference.

"I have always counted on the availability and the participation of the players. We've already got 18 points, but we need more, at least two, to get a good position for the play-offs. There is always an obligation to go for the win.

"Enthusiasm is more important than that formation. We must work hard to get points and have a better draw."

Although Ventura was not willing to state publicly how Italy might line up, defender Matteo Darmian confirmed the players had been trying different shapes in training.

"We're trying out different solutions," he said. "It's normal that with the players we have we can adapt to different formations, it's up to the boss to decide.

"What we have to do is go out on to the pitch and give our all.

"There's no fear, we have to focus on these two games and then we'll have to decisive games [in the play-offs], we all want to go to the World Cup."

Macedonia have won only two of their eight qualifiers so far and Italy will expect to record a comfortable victory before the more difficult task of facing an Albanian team who sit third, six points behind Italy.

Albania would have to beat Spain and then Italy to deny the latter a play-off spot, so for Italy these matches might well be used to prepare for the play-off to come - hence the increased focus on their tactics.

"I don't expect anything in particular in the play-offs," Ventura added. "Everyone will be out to win. We knew we might get to this point. There is no despair."