Paolo Nicolato backed Roberto Mancini following the Azzurri’s play-off disaster and highlighted his pride at the growth of Sandro Tonali and Giacomo Raspadori.
Nicolato’s Under-21 Azzurri side suffered a painful 1-1 draw with Montenegro in their European Championship qualifiers recently, but this result was heavily overshadowed by Italy’s shock 1-0 loss to North Macedonia last week, knocking them out of contention for the upcoming World Cup in Qatar.
Speaking in press conference today, Nicolato first gave his support to Azzurri coach Mancini, who could still resign after tomorrow’s friendly against Turkey.
“Mancini is the least of the problems. It’s a moment in which we have to put ideas into play, men are not a big problem.”
The Under-21 coach expressed his pride at the growth of both Tonali and Raspadori, who are set to feature against Turkey tomorrow.
“It rewards us a lot, it rewards the whole Club Italia. Many people judge only the results, if we qualify for the European Championship and how far we go, but in my analysis there is much more space on the work of preparation of a player for the senior national team.”
Italy will play Turkey in a fairly meaningless friendly match tomorrow at 18.45 UK time, a match which will likely feature a number of new ideas following the play-off disaster. Nine players including Ciro Immobile, Jorginho and Lorenzo Insigne have already withdrawn from Coverciano and so will not take part in the game.