Ciro Immobile has fired blanks in his last nine Italy games, but statistically his negative influence seems to spread across to the team.
The Euro 2020 qualifying campaign kicks off this evening at 19.45 GMT against Finland.
Lazio striker Immobile is expected to lead the line with support from Moise Kean and Federico Bernardeschi.
If he were to find the net, it’d be Immobile’s first goal for Italy since a header to beat Israel 1-0 on September 5, 2017.
The Neapolitan has failed to score in his last nine Azzurri appearances.
Ciro Immobile has fired blanks in his last nine Italy games, but statistically his negative influence seems to spread across to the team.
The Euro 2020 qualifying campaign kicks off this evening at 19.45 GMT against Finland.
Lazio striker Immobile is expected to lead the line with support from Moise Kean and Federico Bernardeschi.
If he were to find the net, it’d be Immobile’s first goal for Italy since a header to beat Israel 1-0 on September 5, 2017.
The Neapolitan has failed to score in his last nine Azzurri appearances.
More concerning than that, a closer look at the statistics shows during those nine games, the entire Italy team scored only two goals.
Both of those were in 1-1 friendly draws against England and Ukraine.
However, Immobile only came off the bench against Ukraine moments after the goal had been scored by Federico Bernardeschi.
That means in Immobile’s last eight Italy starts, the Nazionale have scored precisely one goal.
There was no shortage of versatility, because Italy’s last 13 goals were scored by 13 different players.
From the most recent, they were Matteo Politano, Cristiano Biraghi, Federico Bernardeschi, Jorginho, Simone Zaza, Leonardo Bonucci, Andrea Belotti, Mario Balotelli, Lorenzo Insigne, Antonio Candreva, Giorgio Chiellini, Immobile and Manolo Gabbiadini.