After Gianluigi Buffon retired from Italy, Daniele De Rossi also announced his retirement from international football. He spoke to Sky Sport after the match, "This evening this play-off ended poorly and the result hurts because people like us love this shirt: me, the players, the manager. Another course is finished, those of the old players. It was in the air and we had hoped it would finish in a few months. I wanted to retire after Euro 2016 because I would have liked to finish after a good memory. I have loved this team and this jersey: I have had two skins tattooed to my body my whole life and to abandon one of them hurts me a lot and it hurts me to know that I will no longer see people with whom I have shared a lot, but even the newer players. It is a sad day but the story is finished and it is just right to note it. If we go analyze the match we can see that we deserved it but it is useless to talk about this because Italy must have and should have passed through despite the barricade they put up."
"The episode of not wanting to go in? If I offended someone I ask for forgiveness, it was a moment. They have been tense days and there are things that happen in certain moments, I would have wanted to enter but I thought Insigne or El Sharaawy would have been better. Absolutely nothing happened."