ITALY stars have revealed new boss and Rangers hero Gennaro Gattuso “gave them a few slaps” to wake them up in their 5-0 win over Estonia.
The Azzurri were level at half-time in their World Cup qualifier and struggling to break down a resilient side 115 places below them in the Fifa rankings.
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It was Gattuso’s debut managing the Italian national team and he was clearly not happy with what he was seeing from his players.
So much so, Alessandro Bastoni said once the players were in the dressing room at the interval, Gattuso gave them a few slaps to wake them up.
Bastoni told Sky Sport Italia: “I never had Gattuso as a teammate, but I can imagine what that was like!”
“He gives us so much determination and grit, a fair few slaps too, which perhaps we needed to have a wake-up call. I think we needed that lately.”
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The Italians responded well though and scored five second-half goals, with a Mateo Retegui double and strikes from Moise Kean, Bastoni and Giacomo Raspadori.
Raspadori was asked if the slaps were metaphorical, he replied: “No, he gave us genuine slaps, I got one on the back of the neck.
“Over these days, he has given us a lot of determination and grit, because we are talented players, we’ve just got to get it all out there on the pitch and prove it.
“I think we had a concrete game from start to finish today, as five goals are not easy to score against a team like this.
“We’ve got to believe that we are on the right track to go forward.”
Meanwhile, the former Rangers star Gattuso is apologising for comments he made ahead of facing Israel in a World Cup qualifier on Monday.
He said remarks about saying they were “unlucky” to face Israel were not political rather it was to do with facing a strong opponent.
“I apologise if anyone misunderstood,” he said. “I only said we were unlucky to face Israel in our group, because it is a good team with players who can cause us problems.
“That’s all I meant… I apologise to everyone — I never meant it was unfortunate that we had to play against Israel.
“Never. Allow me to say, the words reported in Israel did not reflect my intention at all.”
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