Coach Ghedin happy with Malta’s performance

Malta vs Italy post-match comments • Video by Ray Attard

Report by Cristian Muscat

Malta’s national football coach Pietro Ghedin expressed satisfaction at his team’s performance during the match against Italy.

Despite losing to Italy 1-0, Malta put up a fight and on at least two occasions had the chance to score a goal.

“I am happy with our performance,” Ghedin said, in his first comments to the media after the match.

In reply to questions by MaltaToday on whether he had been concerned with the expulsion of captain Michael Mifsud, Ghedin admitted to having been a bit worried at first.

“The team however reacted very well and managed to play despite focusing more on the defense,” he said.

Ghedin said that the Maltese players constantly marked their opponents and managed to control them particularly well, adding that that good things laid ahead for the team if this performance is upheld.

“It is now time to look forward and hope for better results,” he added.

Tonight’s game was Malta’s third consecutive defeat in the Euro 2016 qualifiers.

On his part, Italy’s national coach Antonio Conte said his team had to hope for better performances.

“We played against two teams who tried to destroy our tactics. It is only a few months after the disaster of the World Cup and we cannot think that we are the best team in the world. We must hope for better performances,” he said.

Conte had words of praise for Graziano Pellè, despite many thinking that it would have been Ciro Immobile to score.

“It was a good debut for Pelle who managed to find the net. Many thought it would have been Immobile to score, but this wasn’t the case. It wasn’t easy for us to score.”

Conte said Italy had to work more and play better in order to get results, admitting that the upcoming matches against Bulgaria and Croatia will not be easy.