Italy coach Roberto Mancini confirms Manuel Locatelli could start against Switzerland tomorrow, while standing up for Ciro Immobile. ‘As a centre-forward, he is not, well, immobile…’
The World Cup qualifier kicks off at St. Jakob-Park in Basel on Sunday at 19.45 UK time (18.45 GMT).
Marco Verratti is an injury doubt after sustaining a knock to the knee during Thursday’s 1-1 draw with Bulgaria, so Locatelli should step in, despite not starting a game yet this season for Juventus.
“Locatelli might not have 90 minutes in his legs, but can play 60-70 minutes at a high level, certainly,” Mancini told RAI Sport.
Roma midfielder Nicolò Zaniolo is also pushing to feature after recovering from two serious knee injuries in under a year.
“I think Zaniolo can be important tomorrow and in future. He has enormous quality, is young and needs to play, but he is someone who can make the difference.”
Immobile received yet more criticism after the 1-1 draw with Bulgaria, having also been pin-pointed during UEFA EURO 2020, for not being able to replicate his extraordinary Lazio form in the Azzurri jersey.
In trying to defend the striker, Mancini played on the name, which translates in English exactly the same as Italian.
“Immobile as a centre-forward is not, well, immobile… He moves around a lot, he runs and battles for the team. He’s just been a bit more unlucky at international level than when playing for Lazio, but that can happen. After all, there’s less pressure at club level.
“We still won the European Championship with him playing, you know. We’ll see how he’s doing in terms of fitness tomorrow morning and then decide, as we have a few different alternatives.”
Immobile has 15 goals in 53 senior caps for Italy, but none in his last five appearances.
Domani #SvizzeraItalia, gara fondamentale nella corsa alla qualificazione ai Mondiali di #Qatar2022#Mancini: “Dubbio Verratti, pronto Locatelli”
L’intervista esclusiva integrale 👉https://t.co/wJWA5pmHmI@vivoazzurro @AleAntinelli @robymancio pic.twitter.com/nTBkVZLmXo
— RaiSport (@RaiSport) September 4, 2021
Please don’t play him, I can’t stand watching him struggle.
Immobile owes Mancini big time – time to step up. If not now, when?
immobile has never been a clinical striker. italy is getting exactly who he is. at lazio he is wasteful and usually needs 4 or 5 chances to score goal. unfortunately in international football because of how tight defensively teams play you not going get alot of chances as a striker to score. so no one should be surprised about immobile. tme to give raspadori and kean a chance from the start.
Seriously, he was worse than useless at the euros, he was an embarrassment with that rolling around with a fake injury nonsense. Obviously he is good, as evidenced at Lazio, but evidently he isn’t working in the national team’s setup, so time to face reality and play someone else who is better suited to the role.
“He moves around a lot, he runs and battles for the team.”
Surely we have forwards who can do both the graft and put the ball in the back of the net? It’s not just Immobile’s poor goalscoring record at International level, it’s the number of times that he’s caught offside, the number of times his poor control gives possession back to opponents. Mancini’s loyalty to Immobile remnds me of the stubborn way in which Lippi, in 2010, chose so many players who were either not good enough or were clearly past it. I sincerely hope that this does not come back to haunt us come the end of the qualifiers.
In the Euro final, Mancini took Immobile off in the 55th minute and played Insigne as a false 9 and had him interchanging with Chiesa and Berardi. We improved considerably. Perhaps this could be tried again, but instead of Berardi how about Zaniolo.?
If Ciro hasn’t produced his club form with Italy by now he never will,
He lacks confidence never seems in control of himself or the ball and isn’t on the same wavelength wondering offside a lot he’s just not up to international level and it shows badly.
I hope Mancini can see this and find an alternative or it will start to damage his reputation.
I’ve never been a great fan but it nosedived further when he feigned injury in the penalty area against Belgium it could have cost us if the referee blew before Barella scored.
I don’t understand why he doesn’t give Politano a chance. I am a Ciro fan. But give Matteo a chance.
Mancini has to be very very careful not to take this team down with him just because he always want to play Immobile.
Immobile causes Italy to lose possession of the ball literally over 20 times against Bulgaria
@Villarusso that’s a good call. Politano looks to be one of those players who is very comfortable and effective at International level. He’s done little wrong when called upon and has bagged 3 goals in only 4 games, yet for some reason Mancini doesn’t fancy him??
For a coach who has often spoken about merit, it must be very frustrating and disheartening for our other forwards to see Mancini standing by someone who has underperformed time and time again. It does not send a good message.
The 15 goals in 53 caps does not tell the full story. Almost all of his goals were scored against weaker opposition.
Italy’s problem is that they have no playmakers to give Ciro chances. Italy’s problem is that has no creator of chances in the field. Barella, jorginho, and veratti are not midfielders in the class of luis alberto and milinkovic savic, who have great synergy with Ciro! That’s the fact. Chiesa creates mostly for himself and insinie plays as bad as Ciro also but yet no hate to him. Italy’s lack of playmaker affects Ciro’s game. As a Laziale i dont mind Ciro dont play again for Italy, play Raspadori if you like or whoever i don’t care. Ciro this year will score again 30 goals in serie a so….
This is in response to di marzo
Borussia Dortmund could not believe how bad Immobile was when they purchased the leading goal scorer in serie a…they tried so so hard to help him but eventually they dumped him
Sevilla then the same…they could not believe how bad he was
No one cares how many goals you can score in serie a if you can’t score outside the league…any league thus far in his career
Mancio knows Ciro is sensitive so he isn’t going to berate him in front of the media. Ciro simply does not have the mental strength to play for Italy with the same ability he does for Lazio. You can see he’s night and day different. I think it’s best for both parties to move on, since if Ciro stays he’ll certainly be the scapegoat at 2022. Unfortunately we do have very few options to replace him at the moment. Hope one of our younger players has a breakthrough season.
Giardino di Marzo – are you serious? Those Italian midfielders you mention are the best in the world…Italy just won the Euros because of those players…
your Lazio man is garbage – that’s the problem…
15 goals in 53 apps and all against weaker teams…he’s 31 and hasn’t peaked for the azzurri,clearly he should be dropped
I think it’s time to end the Immobile experiment that has been failing since the Prandelli era. He’s just not national team material. I agree with the idea of the false nine. We need more movement and confidence up front. We have a fantastic midfield, so creating chances for our strikers has not been the problem. The problem is that Ciro has a poor first and second touch and loses possession too many times. He is a liability for this team. I would try a trident of Chiesa, Zaniolo, and Berardi since all three can beat their defender 1 v 1. I think it would be a great compliment to our phenomenal midfield.
I can’t see how anyone can defend Ciro he has had plenty of opportunities to shine for Italy & at 31 he’s not the future.
Mancini should go with Raspadore I can see the determination he has in his eyes when he plays,
Bob – these players are NOT creative midfielders, they are top class in other aspects like pressing and cover spaces, they cant create opportunities, can you understand that?
Stefano- well, serie a has the most points for difficulty to score in a league along with la liga and premier League so immobile won already one golden shoe with his 36 goals in 2020 and this year he is about to make a pair of them.
Giadini di Marzo – Barella, Veratti and Jorginho are world class midfielders and have the talent to distripute the ball to whoever they want – that’s not the issue. The Immobile experiment for the nationals didn’t work out for other reasons mentioned here. I wish him well, but it’s time to move forward with some better prospects.
there’s plenty of creative players on this team… no, I don’t understand you…
So Glad to see Di Lorenzo starting in place of Florenzi.
Lots on here Criticize Mancini picking Di Lorenzo over Calabria but the critics need to realize Di Lorenzo is the only right back we have who on top of being attacking when need has the intelligence to drop back into a three man defense as other players attack. Calabria as good as he is going forward lacks this tactical awareness.
I find it funny that everyone is berating Immobile. He brings more to the team than jus goals, and Mancini recognises this. Can anyone remind me how many frontmen have been regular goalscorers for the Azzurri since Vieri and Inzaghi – two players who, outside of their goals, hardly contributed anything else to the team? di marzo is spot on about the midfielders not being real playmakers and their club stats show it. Same goes for the forwards. In the past, Italy had forwards like Baggio, Totti, Del Piero and even Mancini, who weren’t worried about always being on the scoresheet. Today, all forwards want to be the heroes. Berardi is arguably the most unselfish out of the group but even he is being regularly put under pressure to score by fans and media at the risk of being dropped. And that has been Italy’s problem for sometime with so many strikers who have been regular goalscorers for their clubs not being able to replicate the same form for country. Mancini has made the most of this and even won a tournament in spite of this deficiency, and yet fans and media tell him what to do like they know more than him.
Mancini’s standing up for Immobile doesn’t make any sense. He played all matches in the Euro second round with 0 goals, and he could have caused significant problems for Italy with that performance. Still, Italy won because of other player’s outstanding performance.
A striker at an international level should score from a half-chance, but he is getting 3 to 4 full chances every match without scoring. This is too much and unacceptable.
Especially, there are many players at a good level who need a chance to start the match instead of him.
It’s time for Bellotti, Kean, Raspadori.
For the right back, it’s time for Calabria.
For center back, Bastoni is much better than Acerbi.
He should use his best cards always, taking a risk at such games could cause losing points like last game against Bulgaria.
I’m starting to wonder if Mancini sees a younger version of himself in Immobile! Perhaps he feels for the guy as a player who plays well at club level but can’t reach the same level of success on the international stage. Despite many arguments for Ciro to be dropped (some of them mine), I suspect Mancini will finally use some different faces up front on Wednesday against Lithuania.
@Stefano – Dortmund tried so hard to help him?? That’s why he only started 9 games in the league and was loaned out to Sevilla after one season, where he was at for just half a season and wasn’t even a regular starter in that time. By using that example, you probably don’t watch the Bundesliga much. Immobile was bought by Dortmund to appease their fans after losing Lewandowski to Bayern for free. He was simply a makeweight rather than a replacement as Aubameyang was Klopp’s main striker that season and when Immobile did start, he had to play on the wings or behind Aubameyang. Is Immobile the only player that has struggled when played mostly off the bench and out of position in his first season in a foreign league?