Luciano Spalletti has named his second squad as CT of the Italy national team, with important EURO 2024 qualifiers against Malta and England coming up in the next international break.
There are few major surprises among Spalletti’s selections, keeping a similar core of players from his first squad that beat Ukraine 2-1 and drew 11-1 with North Macedonia in September.
There is a first call-up for Tottenham left-back and former Udinese talent Destiny Udogie, who has impressed during his first few games in the Premier League.
Ther ehave also been some alrterations in attack, as Ciro Immobile and Mateo Retegui drop out of the squad, whilst Moise Kean and Gianluca Scamacca make their returns to the team.
The Azzurri will face Malta at the Stadio San Nicola in Bari at 19.45 UK time on Saturday, October 14, before travelling to London to play England at Wembley at the same time on Tuesday, October 17.
Italy squad
Goalkeepers: Gianluigi Donnarumma (Paris Saint-Germain), Alex Meret (Napoli), Ivan Provedel (Lazio), Guglielmo Vicario (Tottenham).
Defenders: Francesco Acerbi (Inter), Alessandro Bastoni (Inter), Cristiano Biraghi (Fiorentina), Matteo Darmian (Inter), Giovanni Di Lorenzo (Napoli), Federico Dimarco (Inter), Federico Gatti (Juventus), Gianluca Mancini (Roma), Giorgio Scalvini (Atalanta), Destiny Udogie (Tottenham).
Midfielders: Nicolo Barella (Inter), Giacomo Bonaventura (Fiorentina), Bryan Cristante (Roma), Davide Frattesi (Inter), Manuel Locatelli (Juventus), Sandro Tonali (Newcastle).
Forwards: Domenico Berardi (Sassuolo), Federico Chiesa (Juventus), Moise Kean (Juventus), Giacomo Raspadori (Napoli), Gianluca Scamacca (Atalanta), Mattia Zaccagni (Lazio), Nicolo Zaniolo (Aston Villa).
Great, not that waste of space Immobile in the squad,
Also big congratulations to Udogie. He’s waited way to long for a callup.
Good now wecan get rid of him. He is useless anyway.
As good as it gets, 6 points in the bag, forza italia
People forget udogie cost u21 the game that got them eliminated in the euro recently and was benched next game. I don’t understand a guy has a few games ok and gets a call up along with kean clumsy on ball and terrible forward. Also acerbic should retire sloppy defender.
I luv it
Shows how bad the forward options are when Kean is picked.
4 goalkeepers…
10 defenders….
There is only 3 or 4 changes I’d make, that would be; Casale for Acerbi, Calabria for Darmian, Castrovilli for Bonaventura & Pinamonti for Kean 🤷♂️
Kean? seriously? And he is bringing back other retreads, like Bonaventura..
Wow all expert here!!