Mancini: “Spain took the ball from us, we want it back”

Were you feeling more overwhelmed on the opening day or today?

The first game, besides being the opening one, was very difficult, now we are in the final and it is different. I'm not burdened, maybe I will be tomorrow.

Would you like to have the spirit of Braveheart?

That cover was nice, but our only thought should be to play well to try to win, without anything else. It's just a soccer game.

Is Sterling the most dangerous man?

England are very good, they also have many very strong players on the bench, but if we have come this far we also have our virtues. Sterling is a player who has grown, he is getting faster and faster. We will have to be careful, but they have several very fast and very technical players up front.

It will be played on the same date in 1982 and you are wearing the same Bearzot jacket …

Hopefully it will be an important date for Italians for the second time.

What is the mistake they must not make tomorrow?

We must be calm, knowing that it will be a difficult match for many reasons and being focused on our game. It is the last game, if we want to have fun before going on vacation we must take advantage of these 90 minutes.

England never reached a final in 55 years …

There is a huge passion for football in England, as there is in Italy. He had a lot of bad luck in several World Cups and Euro Cups, with great teams like the one they are now. It will be a beautiful day, playing in front of a packed stadium is great news.

At Wembley there will only be 7,000 Italians …

What will matter to me is to listen to them after the final whistle, during the game we will be focused on other things.

Immobile said that forwards you have to 'pamper' them a lot …

Everyone needs it after 50 days. I am very happy with everyone's work, they have given more than 100%, otherwise we would not have come here. I am very satisfied with what we did.

What adjective would you give to this selection?

I said ‘fun’ and I would repeat it, hoping the boys will have a good time tomorrow too, and now I add ‘substantial’, because he did very big and very difficult things.

Will you continue to play with the same offensive football philosophy?

We always did the same, we would have liked to do it with Spain too, but they knew how to limit us and they were better than us with the ball. We are not going to change now: we are going to try to do what has brought us here.

They are two similar teams, they change in the core: England is more physical, Italy more technical.

England is very strong physically in general, more than us, in the whole field. Soccer, however, is played with the ball on the ground and sometimes the smallest one wins. Hopefully it's us this time.

What does this match represent for your career?

The most important moment, I played in a sub-21 and in a fantastic Absolute, and we could not win either the European Championship or the '90 World Cup despite having been the best team in these competitions. I hope that the satisfactions that I could not get as a footballer come.