“It’s a special year, a 2019 to remember. This team has shown all that it’s worth and that's while changing a lot and launching a lot of young players,” said FIGC President Gabriele Gravina.

“The team today brought an extraordinary journey to a close. I also say thanks to the city of Palermo which welcomed us with great support and it’s a city which has always distinguished itself with its passion. What is most striking about this side is that everyone who is called upon has responded with great enthusiasm.”

Here were Roberto Mancini’s comments after breaking records: “It was a great evening, the final qualifier. We dealt with it well, scoring lots of goals and you can’t do that by chance in an international and it means that we gave all that we could.”

Seven changes, a further two debuts and everyone was up to the challenge: “They’re all young guys and they’re improving match by match and internationals give you strength. Now, we’ll enjoy the moment because we never won all the games before and that’s something extraordinary and we now have six months ahead of this European Championship. The hard thing will be leaving someone out who deserves to be in the 23. Getting back to a place in Europe’s top four? If we keep this up, everything will be fine.”

There was lots of enthusiasm in the dressing room. “I’m happy for myself and my teammates, the Coach and the staff,” said Ciro Immobile. “We had a convincing campaign, we had fun and we thank the crowd in Palermo but also those at other stadiums where we’ve played and we hope that it will be the same at the European Championship.”

The Azzurri forward also looked to the future: “There’s curiosity now about seeing what the groups will be, we know what our strengths are and we have the right mentality and we’re a really good group and we have to keep our feet on the ground. What do I dream of in 2020? Winning something, this team would deserve it for the work we're doing.”