Roma –
mother Roberto ManciniMarianna Puolo, assess Mario Balotelli should be called to Italy National Team. If there is Balotelli, the fate of Gli Azzurri will not be as bad as now.
Italy as the European champion last year received a crushing blow in its pursuit of a ticket to qualify for the 2022 World Cup. Entertaining North Macedonia in the playoff semifinals, Friday (25/3/2022) early morning WIB, Italy should have won easily.
However, the fact is that Italy lost 0-1 after a goal in injury time. That means Italy failed to qualify for the World Cup for two consecutive editions after the 2018 Russian edition. This is certainly a setback for Italian football, which hasn’t been a year since celebrating the Euro 2020 champions.
That defeat should not have happened considering that Italy appeared dominant with 65 percent ball possession and made 32 attempts! Unfortunately, out of 32 attempts, only five were on target.
The problem in Italy’s attack line is arguably not finished. The absence of Federico Chiesa due to a knee ligament injury cannot be replaced by experienced players like Ciro Immobile, Lorenzo Insigne or Domenico Berardi.
Even though all three have an extraordinary goal record in Serie A this season. Call it Berardi who is not only good at making 14 goals, but also donating 14 assists. However, as soon as they entered the national team, the forwards immediately broke down.
Looking at the current condition of Italy, Puolo is saddened that his son Mancini failed to continue last year’s positive trend. According to him, Italy could have qualified and scored a lot of goals if Balotelli was called up.
Balotelli was originally expected to be in the playoff squad, but Mancini did not. The last time Balotelli played for Italy was in the UEFA Nations League against Poland in July 2018.
Even though Balotelli is one of Italy’s sharpest strikers at the moment with 14 goals from 36 caps, better than Immobile who has 15 goals from 55 caps. Besides that, Mario Balotelli also has experience playing at high levels such as the World Cup and European Cup.
“It could have been better, but this is football, sometimes lucky sometimes not. We should have won the game, but the attack line was bad,” Puolo was quoted as saying. Football Italia.
“If I were Mancini, I would call Ballotelli because he has incredible physical strength and nothing can stop him,” he continued.
(mrp/raw)
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