the words before Albania-Italy

For several months now the refrain repeated by Left-handed it’s always the same and the excellent Nations League hasn’t alleviated the disappointment: “This will be the most difficult month and it’s only just begun. But we have games to play to see and evaluate, because there are aspects that from March onwards they will come in handy”.

The group called by Mancini presents some novelties, returns and beginnings: “Church he’s back and we’re pleased, he needs to get back in shape but he’s fine even if he won’t start from 1′. Zaniolo is important for us and will improve under many points of view”. Absent, however, kean: “If he continues to score we will call him again”.

For the National the matches against Albania and Austria will be an opportunity to try something new: “Honestly, I’ve been experiencing it quite badly since March, but unfortunately we missed our chances. This is football and after a great satisfaction came a beating. Now we have to work in the right way to make sure that this thing does not happen again in the future”.

The game system is under evaluation: “Zaniolo he can be a midfielder but also a winger. In the last few games we’ve changed a bit to see which one could give us advantages, but our boys can play different ones.”

For Italy it is the blue football movement is the time of reconstruction: “During the championship it’s normal to have tired players, but I think the boys are aware of the importance of the national team. There are 4-5 young players who play continuously in Serie A and that’s a positive thing.”

Finally, just like with Zaniolo in the early days of his experience as Italy coach, Roberto Mancini called up the 16-year-old by surprise In conclusion from Udinese: “I called him up because he’s a footballer – smiled the coach -, but in reality we’ve been following him for several years from the Under national teams, we glimpsed some qualities. We had already called him in the June internships, we wanted to keep him with us to get to know him better”.