Luciano Spalletti has just announced his first 29 players as head coach of the Italy team, replacing Roberto Mancini to Saudi Arabia.
The coach who led Napoli to win Serie A last season decided to call back Nicolo Zaniolo, Mattia Zaccagni, Manuel Locatelli, Gianluca Mancini and Cristiano Biraghi.
Italy enters a new phase with coach Spalletti and team leader Buffon.
On Spalletti’s list is brand new face Nicolo Casale, who plays quite well in the Lazio defense.
Goalkeepers Ivan Provedel and Guglielmo Vicario also have not had any international soccer matches. However, they were all called up by Mancini to the national team last year.
Notably, Spalletti decided to eliminate two stars in midfield, Jorginho and Marco Verratti.
In fact, this does not come as a surprise to Italian football fans.
Jorginho currently only plays a reserve role at Arsenal. During the end of last season, he also did not play regularly.
Meanwhile, Verratti was completely dropped from PSG’s new project with Luis Enrique. This player has not played a minute and is on his way to Qatar football.
Jorginho and Verratti were simultaneously eliminated.
Two veterans, Bonucci – who just ended his contract with Juventus to join Union Berlin – and Francesco Acerbi also did not appear.
Italy will have two important matches in Group C of the EURO 2024 qualifying round, as a guest of North Macedonia (September 9) and at home to Ukraine (September 12).
Italy currently has only 3 points after 2 matches, temporarily ranked 3rd in Group C (England leads with 12 points after 4 matches).
The Thien Thanh team lacked stability during Mancini’s final period in office. In addition to being eliminated from the 2022 World Cup, the team also lost the Nations League semi-finals and suffered a defeat against England (EURO 2024 qualifier) ​​at home after many decades.
List of Italy
Goalie: Gianluigi Donnarumma (PSG), Alex Meret (Napoli), Ivan Provedel (Lazio), Guglielmo Vicario (Tottenham).
Defender: Alessandro Bastoni (Inter), Cristiano Biraghi (Fiorentina), Nicolo Casale (Lazio), Matteo Darmian (Inter), Giovanni Di Lorenzo (Napoli), Federico Dimarco (Inter), Gianluca Mancini (Roma), Alessio Romagnoli (Lazio), Giorgio Scalvini (Atalanta), Leonardo Spinazzola (Rome).
Midfielder: Nicolo Barella (Inter), Bryan Cristante (Roma), Davide Frattesi (Inter), Manuel Locatelli (Juve), Lorenzo Pellegrini (Roma), Matteo Pessina (Monza), Sandro Tonali (Newcastle).
Striker: Federico Chiesa (Juventus), Wilfried Gnonto (Leeds), Ciro Immobile (Lazio), Matteo Politano (Napoli), Giacomo Raspadori (Napoli), Mateo Retegui (Genoa), Mattia Zaccagni (Lazio), Nicolo Zaniolo (Aston Villa).
Ngoc Huy | 10:27 September 3, 2023
