Manager Vincenzo Montella made the remarks at a press conference held at the Leipzig Stadium, where the match will be held.
Montella began his speech by recalling the friendly against Austria in March, saying: “Austria are a good team, I think maybe the best team. They are a very attacking, pressing team, with great transitions. A comment I made a few days ago: ‘I think they are the best team in every sense. We had a good first half in the friendly, maybe we experienced a psychological drop in the second half.’ ” “It was a big defeat for us as players and as a manager. I don’t remember. Friendlies are different, this game is different. The opposing team’s manager said that too. I hope the result will be different this time,” he said.
The experienced coach: “Can a 6-1 match motivate the players differently?” “First of all, make sure emotions don’t get in the way of our work. You can’t have feelings of revenge, because that prevents you from thinking correctly. We know what kind of country Austria is, what kind of team we are. We know, what can we do, this should be our mindset,” he replied.
To an Italian journalist’s question about Kenan Yıldız, the Italian coach replied: “Kenan is a very good player. His mentality is very high. That’s what I noticed first. He is someone who tries to improve himself in every training session. His speed, tempo, technique, skill… “They are all characteristics that I like. He can improve in terms of being consistent throughout the 90 minutes. He had chances to score some goals but he didn’t. Good luck to him.” He replied:
“I wish all four Italian coaches could have stayed this far,” Montella said of remaining as the only Italian coach in the championship.
Asked about the situation of Arda Güler, coach Vincenzo Montella said: “Age is enough if you are good enough. If you have the talent, even 15 years old you can be useful to the team. Arda is a very talented player. This is it.” It is clear to everyone that a player like him has some areas that need improvement. “When he is a player, we will feel his absence. He is a young player and he needs to improve himself in some areas,” he said in a statement.
Highlighting their leading position in many attacking statistics at EURO 2024, the national team coach said:
“According to UEFA statistics, we scored five goals in the group stage and are third in this area. We are third in total shots, with an average of 16.67 shots per game and 21 corners taken, which puts us third in the group stage. In attack we are fifth with 161 points. It’s just a small amount compared to all the actions we generated. We could have been more scorers. We are happy with the moments when we had the ball. We are fifth in terms of dribbling, but when we look at this data, we can say that we are able to come up with different solutions depending on the flow of the game. We have two forwards with their backs to goal, Bertug and Cenk Tosun, so we have options depending on the flow of the game.”
“We hope that the whole team will not be punished. Tomorrow we will play without our captain, he is an irreplaceable player, of course after two yellow cards,” he said when reminded of the suspensions of Vincenzo Montella, Hakan Calhanoglu and Samet Akaydin. “We will be suspended. I don’t know 100 percent how to interpret it,” he said. “We also have footballers ready to fill these gaps,” he said.
Montella said, “Ralf Rangnick, who also played for Leipzig for many years, and other national team players who played for Leipzig, said, ‘We’re playing at home tomorrow,’ but do you think they’ll understand that they’re not at home? Will you be able to meet Turkish fans tomorrow? ” “Of course, I expect the stadium to be full of red and white flags. The fans have supported us well so far, they supported us in difficult situations. I expect a very lively environment with the fans tomorrow,” he replied.
