Rino Gattuso urges Italy players to relax ahead of Northern Ireland tie | OneFootball

Rino Gattuso’s Italy play Northern Ireland in the FIFA World Cup playoff semi-final on Thursday in what could be one of the biggest ties for the country in recent history. 

The Azzurri haven’t qualified for the last two World Cups and this gives them the chance to rewrite new history.

The pressure will be on the players during the game and potentially in the tie involving Bosnia or Wales. But Gattuso has claimed he has told the players to remain relaxed and doesn’t want to overburden them with too much details.

During the press conference on Monday, the ex-midfielder said: “We need to be light-hearted. I’ll use the example of the match against Norway at San Siro. We had a good first half, and at the first difficulty we relaxed. We need to avoid this from happening, and I’ve been working on this in recent months. Incidents in matches can happen, you need to know how to move on and forget the past.”

He revealed that he is not looking to give the players too many video sessions on Thursday, focusing on them to be serene for the tie.

“Serenity. I can’t imagine numbing them until Thursday with constant texts and 10 video sessions a day. We need to approach the match knowing what we have to do.

Gattuso also placed a lot of belief in the players to make a mark – via Di Marzio.

“Furthermore, my players aren’t runaways. There are players who have won trophies, league titles, reached the Champions League final, and won a European Championship.”

Kaustubh Pandey I GIFN