Ciro Immobile reveals he ‘said no’ to lucrative offers from Saudi Arabia to continue with Lazio and Italy, also confessing that Luciano Spalletti engages more with the players than Roberto Mancini did.
The Azzurri fly out today to Skopje, where their EURO 2024 qualifier against North Macedonia kicks off on Saturday at 19.45 UK time (18.45 GMT).
As is tradition, the captain tends to be the player with the most caps at senior level, so in this case it would be Immobile, followed by goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma.
“It is a dream come true,” the striker told Radio RAI and the FIGC social media channels.
This will be the debut match under new coach Spalletti, as Mancini resigned on August 13, though the rot set in when losing the 2022 World Cup play-off to North Macedonia.
“That was the most painful defeat of my career. It is going to be very difficult tomorrow, we will try not to make the same mistakes, be very humble and concentrated.
“We are assimilating the instructions of the coach and know that we need to be ready for these games. Training has been very different, as the coach likes to dialogue with both individual players and the group. He makes sure everyone feels involved and that is especially important when you don’t get to see each other very often.”
There had been reports over the summer that Immobile received a lucrative proposal from the Saudi Pro League, one that his former club teammate Sergej Milinkovic-Savic accepted.
“I said no because I wanted to continue experiencing these moments with the Nazionale. I still have much to give Italy and the Euros are coming up pretty soon, so I have to give my best right away.”
Immobile is 33 years old and has 16 goals in 56 senior caps for Italy, most recently converting a penalty in the 2-1 Nations League semi-final defeat to Spain in June.
That was his first goal since June 2021 in a 3-0 win over Switzerland for EURO 2020.
You change all the managers you like takes nothing away from the players that can be picked.
1 thing is almost certain, that at the end of the match we probably still be sat here asking “why is Immobile still in this team?”
“…16 goals in 56 senior caps for Italy”
That’s why!
If they’re giving Immobile another chance, then Balotelli should be there too. At least he scores when he plays for Nazionale
Why hasn’t Spalletti called up Belotti or Berardi ? Can anyone answer that?
Yeah Berardi should be on this team. With the players spalletti chose for these 2 games I don’t think italy will win both and if they do it will look ugly. Also if italy doesn’t qualify with all the chances they will be receiving I don’t think even guardiola could revive them