ITALY boss Luciano Spalletti consoled a journalist after the death of his wife shortly before the game against Croatia.
The Azzurri went into their final group game of Euro 2024 needing to at least equal Albania‘s result to guarantee their place in the Last 16.
However Spalletti’s immediate thoughts were not on his team or his tactics, but instead on Sky Sports Italia journalist Marco Nosotti.
That is because the reporter lost his wife of over 30 years, Silvia, just a few days ago.
Nosotti has only recently returned to Germany and Spalletti sought him out as his team took a pre-match parade around the pitch at Leipzig.
The former Napoli boss went up to Nosotti and embraced him warmly as Nosotti buried his face in his shoulder.
Spalletti appeared to say a few words in his ear as he patted the reporter on his back.
The veteran boss revealed he would try a different approach against Croatia after the 1-0 loss to Spain.
He said: “After a game like that, there is the notion and the idea to try and change the team a little bit.
“Now that we’ve noticed there’s a bit of fatigue and rust, we certainly will change things.
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“We’ll change our approach in some ways. We’ll try and have as much substance out there as possible. We’ll try and play uglier but have greater substance so they can’t tap into their ability.
“But we want to play in their half of the pitch and not sit on the edge of our penalty area. They’ve got players that can shoot from distance and play between the lines.”
