Can Baldini’s young guns lift Italy’s gloom?

The show must go on for the Italian national team despite missing the World Cup. Giancarlo Rinaldi looks at what good – if any – can come out of their upcoming friendlies.

They are the games that Italy imagined taking on in very different circumstances. Instead of warming up for the world’s biggest festival of football, they are matches of little or no consequence whatsoever. Nonetheless, interim Azzurri coach Silvio Baldini has been charged with delivering something that has been in very short supply of late – hope.