Danilo Cataldi and Matteo Pessina replaced the injured Nicolò Zaniolo and Lorenzo Pellegrini in the Italy squad, while Roberto Mancini urged clubs to give more playing time to young players.
Today, Italy began their preparation for the upcoming World Cup qualifying matches against Switzerland and Northern Ireland.
Football Italia attended Mancini’s press conference and the first 15 minutes of the training session opened to the media.
These are the most relevant facts from today’s training session and press conference.
Cataldi and Pessina in, Zaniolo and Pellegrini out
The Lazio and Atalanta midfielders replace the Roma duo. Pellegrini has suffered a slight knee injury, while Zaniolo is dealing with calf problems. During his press conference, Mancini had said Pessina was still not ready but decided to include him in the squad anyway.
Barella in doubt
Nicolò Barella was one of the four Italy players who trained separately today. Giorgio Chiellini, Ciro Immobile and Alessandro Bastoni joined him on the sidelines, but the Inter midfielder seems to be the only one in doubt for Friday’s match against Switzerland.
Mancini said Barella’s condition will be assessed in the coming days, but insisted Chiellini is ‘feeling well.’ The same is true of Leonardo Bonucci who regularly trained with the team. Both he and Chiellini missed Juventus‘ Serie A fixture against Fiorentina on Saturday.
There are no hints that Bastoni and Immobile won’t be available against Switzerland.
Youngsters must play
Mancini said he and his staff are monitoring many young players, including Sassuolo‘s Davide Frattesi.
However, he urged clubs to give more playing time to young players, especially in big games.
“There are many strong young players in Italy. They only need to play at a high level,” Mancini said.
“You can expect anything from youngsters, but they can improve only by playing at a certain level.”
Welcome Pobega
The Milan loanee has earned his first call-up to the Italy squad. He trained close to Davide Calabria during the 15 minutes of training opened to media and Mancini praised him during his press conference.
The atmosphere was very relaxed. The Azzurri even placed a portable speaker pumping out music in the middle of the pitch during their warmup.
“Pobega deserves to be here, he is a guy who has done well and we think he has outstanding qualities,” Mancini explained.
“I don’t think there is a player similar to him. He can play as centre midfielder or attacking midfielder, he is a smart guy, we know he can be an important player for the national team because of his characteristics.”
No pressure
Mancini previewed Friday’s game against Switzerland, insisting the Azzurri must not feel the pressure.
Italy are the European champions, but nobody has forgotten what happened in 2017 when they were eliminated from the World Cup play-offs.
Mancini still doesn’t want to think about Qatar 2022 and said he would only discuss the World Cup from Tuesday.
“If we play like in the reverse fixture, we’ll get a good result. We need to prepare for the game with tranquillity and without pressure,” he said.
“We must have fun and play as we know. We know we can play well and, by doing so, we can win. It’s an important game, we know our worth and we will play a great game.”
Italy are the group C leaders on even points with Switzerland, but with a better goal difference.
Mancio is saying all the right things and trying to keep things loose and not get overwhelmed by the pressure. We saw how they played versus Spain last month with all that nervous energy (Bonucci, Bastoni, Gigio boo’s).
He is indeed correct when he brings up the match in Basel in September. Another day that match ends 0-2.
I know the Swiss are missing Granit Xhaka. Don’t know if they have other injuries.
A lot of different sources this season have picked Pobega out for special praise. Even BT said “He look’s the real deal” during the Toro/Samp match. He must have something for Mancio to speak so highly of him like that + it’s great the atmosphere that Mancio generate’s around the Azzurri while they’re preparing too. Make no mistake, that brotherhood feeling of fun helped them to win the Euro’s. They need that more than ever now to lay that 2018 ghost to bed!
Wonder why he didn’t call sensi up is he injured again ? Only Jorjinho seems like he is always fit
Great article!
I hope our coach also calls up Zappacosta & Darmian, both have been in super good form for Atalanta & Inter offlate