Italy legend Zoff: ‘We are better than our opponents but in these special games, who believes more wins’

Dino Zoff has backed Italy to reach the World Cup but issued a pointed warning ahead of Thursday’s playoff semi-final against Northern Ireland, reminding the nation that quality alone is never enough when the stakes are this high.

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The 1982 World Cup winning goalkeeper, speaking to Corriere della Sera, via TuttoMercatoWeb, was confident in Italy’s superiority on paper but emphatic that belief would be the decisive factor.

“If we play like Italy, we will definitely go through,” he said. “We are stronger than Northern Ireland, and also Wales and Bosnia. We have more quality, better players, greater experience. But these are special games, whoever believes more wins. So we must believe more. Otherwise…”

World Cup winning goalkeeper Zoff: ‘We are Italy’

Zoff was unwilling to complete that sentence, and equally reluctant to dwell on the consequences of failure. “You must not think about it,” he said firmly. “Fear never helps. You need to be concentrated, clear-headed, convinced, in a certain sense also calm, aware of your own strengths. We are Italy. We play like Italy. Without thinking we have already won, or already lost. You walk onto the pitch and give everything, head held high.”

Drawing on the lessons of his own playing career, Zoff pointed to the 1982 World Cup triumph as the ultimate example of a team that thrived by shutting out external noise.

“We isolated ourselves from everything and everyone, nobody believed in us, and yet it went the way it went.” His advice to Gattuso was similarly direct: trust your own judgment and ignore the voices from outside, including social media.

On one point, at least, Zoff was unequivocal, Gattuso needs no counsel from him. “Only to do what he thinks is best,” he said simply.