Ventura: I didn’t want to replace De Rossi in the World Cup play-offs, that was the biggest fake news in 50 years

In an interview, former Italian national team coach Ventura talked about the incident of being rejected from replacing De Rossi in the 2018 World Cup play-offs.

In the 2018 World Cup European qualifying play-offs, Italy lost to Sweden with a total score of 0-1 in two rounds and failed to qualify for the World Cup. At that time, when Italy was lagging behind in the total score, coach Ventura was preparing to replace midfielder De Rossi, but De Rossi refused to play. Media reports at the time said that De Rossi asked Ventura to replace striker Insigne to strengthen the attack. After Italy missed the World Cup, Ventura's substitution attempt was also criticized by the media and fans.

But Ventura said this week: "That was the biggest fake news about the Italian national team in the past 50 years! No one asked De Rossi to play at that time, but the team's physical coach (Alessandro Innocenti) arranged for the players to rotate He would warm up the players in groups and it was De Rossi's turn and I didn't even see that, which proves that everything was viewed in a negative way at that time."source:Game má»›i 2025