Inter Milan defender Francesco Acerbi felt a lack of self-belief cost Italy defeat to England.
Italy lost their Euro qualifier 3-1 at Wembley on Tuesday night.
Acerbi said: “The first half was good, but looking back with hindsight, if we passed it around, we could fairly easily get into their penalty area. Perhaps we should’ve believed in ourselves a bit more and could’ve won this game.
“England have very talented young players, but that doesn’t mean everything in football. We could’ve hurt them. In the second half, we sort of clocked out mentally. You could see in the first half they were defending deep and were afraid of us.
“Seeing them play with that kind of humility, we ought to view ourselves the same way. Our attitude in the first half was good, but we can never lower our guard against players of this level.”
He added: “The coach trained big clubs before, he has been working at the highest level for many years. He is reassuring us that we are strong, that we must believe in ourselves with the intensity that he wants to see,.
“However, he also said there isn’t much time, I need people who are ready. We need to be much more ready mentally than we were today. Losing to England is no shame, but looking at the passes we made and didn’t make, the spaces that opened up, we could’ve done more.”
