A few months ago, before the adventure of the CT on the bench of the Italian National Team ended badly, a “Acerbi case” broke out with the call-ups by Luciano Spalletti. The Tuscan coach returned to comment on that event today, directly from the stage of the Festival dello Sport di Trento.

These are the words of the former Azzurri CT on why he chose to recall the Inter player: “At that moment, Gatti, Buongiorno, and Gabbia were injured. Between Mancini and Acerbi, I chose the latter and he answered a phone call from me the day before the call-up. He told me that if I thought it was right to call him up, he would come.”

“Then a few days passed and he sent me a message to say that he had changed his mind and that he would no longer come. So I called him back and he brought up the issue with Juan Jesus again. In that story, we had to intervene because those are delicate matters. If he is happy that way, I am happy for him. But things went differently from how he told it,” concludes Spalletti.