In Vienna, Roberto Mancini suffered his seventh defeat in 57 games as Head Coach of the senior side, confirming his reign as bringing more success than negativity. After fighting back to win in Albania on Wednesday, he repeated the 3-4-3 formation, but this time the plan didn't have the same effect: "For this system to work, you need to be very compact and tight as a team. We didn't press enough from the front, which led to the midfielders facing a lot of difficulties; we were too far apart with too much space left around. We made a lot of technical errors and gave up possession three or four times, which we don't usually do. We had the first great chance of the game, and we should have scored, and then they put us under a lot of pressure. In the second half, I saw a good performance, which unfortunately didn't bring us a goal, we lacked a bit of precision and luck. It's a shame to end the year in defeat, but it's not all doom and gloom."   

In his 120th cap, Leonardo Bonucci was his usual, honest self: “We weren't at the races and not our usual selves, especially in the first half. They came out more aggressive and that hurt us. We need these types of games though to help us improve." The 3-4-3 system still needs to be worked on by a side that has shown it can change its face: "We need to be more organised with two central midfielders, and the three at the back need to move around better, but these are the mechanisms that need to be worked on in training, and this week we've had very little time to do that. At this level, you need to improve in every department, but against Albania and today we've struggled mostly with our defensive positioning when in possession of the ball." On the day the World Cup started, the disappointment of not being involved is still strong, but Italy has always shown character in bouncing back after negative periods: "There's huge disappointment," admitted the captain, "we are still smarting. But we can't cry about what has happened, we need to look forward with the conviction that we can build something special again. There are the foundations for a bright future, there's a lot of talent ready to take the international stage." 

After scoring twice in September in the games against England and Hungary, and a great performance on Wednesday in Tirana with his many assists for Grifo, this time out Giacomo Raspadori struggled to make an impact in the game. And when his chance did come, in the second half, he was stopped by Lindner's top-class save: “We made a lot of technical errors, we wanted to play better and get a result in a game that counted for little but was still important for us as players. We struggled to keep the ball, and they took advantage of our mistakes. We have a lot of work to do to build a new future."

Gianluigi Donnarumma was also unable to celebrate his 50th cap for the First Team: “An eye on the World Cup isn't an excuse, but it played its part a little tonight. Being here and watching everyone in Qatar is hard. Crying about it though isn't going to help anyone, we need to find the right spirit and serenity that we had before. We are a great group, the young players are very talented and us experienced players are helping them along. There's a great staff as well who know how to get us out of this situation." The saves from Sabitzer, Arnautovic and Posch made the loss slightly less painful, but the Azzurri shot-stopper was self-critical anyway after Alaba's free-kick made it 2-0: “I was expecting that type of free-kick because I know he's capable of it. It was an unbelievable strike, I'll look at it and analyse it afterwards to see where I went wrong. I shouldn't be letting in goals under the bar like that."