JORGINHO has revealed the secret behind his ice-cold penalty which took Italy to the Euro 2020 final – deep breathing.
The Chelsea midfielder slotted home the deciding spot-kick in a dramatic semi-final shootout triumph over Spain at Wembley.
And Jorginho opened up on his emotions after he placed his hop, step and jump penalty past Unai Simon with his unique calmness.
Jorginho said: “After you kick the ball, you feel like a weight has been lifted from your shoulders.
“But, in that moment, I tried to forget what was going on around me, to do what I’d trained to do.
“I breathed (Jorginho then made a deep breath gesture) as I do to be more focused and then I did what I had to do.”
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Jorginho’s nickname among his team-mates is ‘Radio’ for the way he directs Roberto Mancini’s side and constantly talks to his Azzurri pals from the midfield engine room.
And his signal was on the right wavelength as keeper Simon remained rooted to the spot.
The Spain stopper was completely wrong-footed as Jorginho rolled the ball into the right-hand bottom corner to spark wild celebrations in the lively Italian section of support under the arch.
Jorginho is in line to become only the tenth player to win the Euros and Champions League in the same season after Chelsea’s victory over Manchester City in Porto.
Italy have not lifted the European Championship trophy since 1968 and the 29-year-old believes the character shown against the Spanish will make them difficult to beat in Sunday’s final.
He added: “Italy never give up. We always believe. This is a wonderful squad.
“We deserve it all. We suffer, play, laugh, have fun, and sometimes we even fight. together like a family.
“You can see for yourself that the ones on the bench help the ones on the pitch. It’s really beautiful.
“We suffered a bit against a great team that put us in trouble, made us run a lot.
We knew this, we suffered and that’s it. We took it to the end; we always believed. And we deserved to win.”
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Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
