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Italy duo hail group effort after England success

Match winner Lorenzo Insigne and Fausto Rossi said Italy had a "fantastic group" of players after defeating England, who "could have played better" according to Craig Dawson.

Italy duo hail group effort after England success
Italy duo hail group effort after England success ©UEFA.com

He may have scored a fantastic free-kick winner, but Lorenzo Insigne was quick to credit the whole Italy squad after their 1-0 opening victory against England in Group A. The midfielder did also admit "it couldn't be better for me" after his key intervention, while England captain Jordan Henderson intimated that his side did not play to their potential at Bloomfield Stadium.

Lorenzo Insigne, Italy midfielder  
It certainly couldn't be better for me, even though it is thanks to the whole team. We fought for the whole match and we are pleased with the performance and the win. The group is the most important thing. We are a fantastic group not only on the pitch, but also off it. We must be focused on ourselves.

From [Thursday] we will start to think about the game against Israel. We have to take to the pitch with the same attitude and try to get the result. It felt amazing. I would like to dedicate this goal to my father and to my agent – who are here in Israel – and also to my wife, my daughter and my mother. They are following me from Italy.

Fausto Rossi, Italy midfielder
We are very happy with these three points, but we haven't done anything yet. We have to enjoy this success and then concentrate on the next game. We are all happy with this result. We are a great group, we proved that on the field from the first minute until the final whistle today. We are organised on the field and friends off it.

We don't want to work anything out [in the group], we will take it game by game. Now we face Israel, the hosts of the tournament, and it won't be easy. We will try to repeat today's performance.

Jordan Henderson, England midfielder and captain
Obviously we're disappointed to lose the game. I thought Italy kept the ball quite well at times and they still found it difficult to break us down. Italy had a lot possession – we tried to press them higher up the pitch in the first 20 minutes but it wasn't really working. They were sort of picking us off a bit so we went back into our shape, a little bit deeper, and I thought that worked a little better because they found it hard to break us down.

They didn't get any real clear-cut chances but then they scored from the free-kick, so we're very disappointed, but we need to pick ourselves up for the next game. We could have kept the ball a little bit better at times when we got it back, but we'll go through the game, I'm sure. We can't get too down – we need to pick ourselves up. We've still got two games to go and it doesn't really matter how you get out of your group, as long as you do, so we'll be fighting.

We've got two games left, we need to win both of them. We need to recover properly and we need to be ready for the next game – they're both massive games for us.

Craig Dawson, England defender
We're a little bit disappointed, but we'll take the positives out of the game, look at the video and improve for Saturday. We think we could have played better tonight but we'll recover well now and get ready for the next.

They're a good side and obviously got the three points, but on another night we could have got a better result. Second half I thought we came out well, played some good football, had a few chances and were just unfortunate the goal didn't come for us.

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