Italy were 'crazy to go into ultra-attacking mode' as Gennaro Gattuso reflects on lessons learned from nine-goal thriller against Israel

Italy and Israel played out a hectic game in Debrecen on Monday, with the Azzurri falling behind through a Manuel Locatelli own goal before Moise Kean levelled the score before half-time. The game truly exploded in the second period, with Israel taking the lead again before Italy's quickfire double turned things around. In the end, it was a stoppage time goal from Sandro Tonali that wrapped up the three points, making it three wins in a row.

The four-time world champions have missed the previous two editions of the World Cup and there were fears they were in for another humiliating campaign when they opened the qualifying phase with a 3-0 defeat to Norway in June, leading to Luciano Spalletti being sacked. Gattuso has overseen two exciting victories since stepping in to the role, having beaten Estonia 5-0 last week, and the ex-AC Milan midfielder sees a lot of room for improvement despite his delight with the six points.

The 47-year-old said: "It was the craziest match since I've been coaching, but this is my problem and I'll explain it to you because if we want to play as a unit or do certain things this is an aspect we have to improve, we were crazy at 4-2 to systematically go into ultra-offensive pressure when we could have created a defensive block and waited and recovered, they wanted that, recover the ball, go one-on-one with the overlapping full-backs and they went to play through the channels, okay, let's enjoy it, congratulations to the lads for these seven or eight days they've put in, but we certainly know we have to improve certain aspects but we'll enjoy this victory."

He further commented on the improvements needed, adding: "This is a vibrant team, it's not a coincidence that you concede a goal and then after a minute go out there and try, the team didn't give up, they did what they had to. They surprised us because they came man for man, but every time we found the two attackers, we easily got to the goal. This team can't lack solidity, but it's something I have to fix even if there's no time. These players are used to going to the references, but we want to do something different. Even today, we struggled with their long balls, then we fixed it, but it's something we need to improve. I repeat, we congratulate these guys because it was a crazy match, but we put our heart and soul into it."

Italy will return to action on October 11 when they take on Estonia away from home.