With the mission of competing for a place in the World Cup in the repechage in March, coach Roberto Mancini decided to call up a series of athletes for a period of training for the Italian team in the CT de Coverciano, from the 26nd to the 28th of January.
And he took the opportunity to promote news: Italian-Brazilians João Pedro, from Cagliari, and Luiz Felipe, from Lazio, were two of the athletes selected for the team for the first time, while Mario Balotelli He was called back after more than three years.
Mancini named 35 players who will work under the supervision of the technical committee for three days, taking advantage of a FIFA Date with no games scheduled for the European teams.
Only athletes who play in Italian football were selected, with the exception of Balotelli. Currently at Adana Demirspor, in Turkey, the 31-year-old striker has not been called up since September 2018, when he participated in the Nations League.
The coach took advantage of the training period to call up two Italian-Brazilians who were in the Azzurri's sights recently: defender Luiz Felipe, from Lazio, and striker João Pedro, from Cagliari. Luiz has been working in the country since 2017, when he left Ituano to Salernitana, and João has played for the same team since 2015, after playing for Santos and Atlético-MG.
The duo joins three Italian-Brazilian athletes who are usually part of Mancini's group and were, for example, in winning the European title last year: the defender Rafael Toloi, full-back Emerson Palmieri and midfielder Jorginho. Of the three, only Tolói will participate in the three-day training period, which will be held behind closed doors.
Current European champions, Italy failed to secure a direct place in the 2022 World Cup through the group stage of the European qualifiers, placing second in group C, behind Switzerland.
The team will now have two knockout matches worth a place in Qatar: first, you will face the Northern Macedonia, in Palermo, on March 24th. Afterwards, they will face Portugal or Türkiye in a decision, on the 29th.
See the complete list:
- goalkeepers: Marco Carnesecchi (Cremonese), Alessio Cragno (Cagliari), Alex Meret (Napoli), Salvatore Sirigu (Genoa);
- Defenders: Alessandro Bastoni (Inter), Cristiano Biraghi (Fiorentina), Davide Calabria (Milan), Giorgio Chiellini (Juventus), Mattia De Sciglio (Juventus), Giovanni Di Lorenzo (Napoli), Alessandro Florenzi (Milan), Luiz Felipe (Lazio), Gianluca Mancini (Roma), Luca Pellegrini (Juventus), Giorgio Scalvini (Atalanta), Rafael Tolói (Atalanta);
- Midfielders: Nicolò Barella (Inter Milan), Bryan Cristante (Roma), Nicolò Fagioli (Cremonese), Davide Frattesi (Sassuolo), Manuel Locatelli (Juventus), Matteo Pessina (Atalanta), Samuele Ricci (Empoli), Stefano Sensi (Inter), Sandro Tonali (Milan);
- Attackers: Mario Balotelli (Adana Demirspor), Domenico Berardi (Sassuolo), Federico Bernardeschi (Juventus), Ciro Immobile (Lazio), Lorenzo Insigne (Napoli), João Pedro (Cagliari), Giacomo Raspadori (Sassuolo), Gianluca Scamacca (Sassuolo), Mattia Zaccagni (Lazio), Nicolò Zaniolo (Rome).
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