Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and midfielder Marco Verratti hit back at fans who jeered the Azzurri during their 1-0 World Cup qualifying win over Israel on Tuesday.
Ciro Immobile's goal was the only difference between the sides, but with the previous defeat to Spain still fresh in fans' mind, the result was not widely applauded.
There was a chorus of whistles with the game still goalless at half-time, and Verratti left the game in the final minutes to more jeers.
"I don't agree with the jeers, nor the criticism. It's never easy at international level, just look at France drawing with Luxembourg or Sweden beaten by Belarus," Verratti told Rai Sport.
"Italy fans are always pessimistic, but we know that things change quickly here and all it takes is one good performance to be considered a phenomenon, one bad game to be called unworthy of the shirt.
"We have won all our games in qualifying apart from against Spain, we must admit that at this point in time they are superior to us.
"We dominated Israel in terms of possession, with shots on goal and should've won by a bigger margin, so we need to be more efficient."
Italy controlled the game with over 70 percent of possession, but Buffon called that a meaningless statistic.
"Yes, there were jeers at times when we couldn't find a way through, but that is part of our philosophy," Buffon told Rai Sport. "Nobody cares about possession in Italy. In Spain if they make 200 passes in 20 metres, everyone applauds, here they jeer.
"We tried to force the situation to go towards the taste of the crowd, so inevitably ran a few risks at the back."
Italy coach Giampiero Ventura also shrugged off the fans' reaction, saying his side was focused on the game at hand.
"When you don't score, there can be a little disappointment, but if you want to be a team, you can't listen out for applause or jeers," he said.
"When we look back over this game, we'll see the steps forward. Everyone from the day of the draw said the World Cup playoff was likely, so it's not a surprise. If we had a victory over Spain, it would've been abnormal."
Despite the slim scoreline, Ventura said "steps forward" were made despite a slow start.
"It was evident that the priority was the result, but I am happy. I am happy because staying in the opposition half for 80 minutes is tough," he said.
"We were sluggish in the first half, but picked up the pace and put balls into the box constantly. It's evident there is a lot more work to do, we do what we can over three days, but I am satisfied with how the team worked.
"I think they realised that if they had the same tempo as in the second half, they'd have created many, many more chances. We take it one step at a time."