Antonio Conte has called up 28 players for Italy’s upcoming friendlies versus Belgium and Romania. All familiar faces, nobody new but a few surprises nonetheless.
During Italy’s Euro 2016 qualifying campaign, there has been a constant theme with Conte’s callups. He has decided to stick with players he is comfortable with, prefers leaning on his veterans and leave little room for any aspiring U21’s who wish to join the senior team.
That has not changed with the roster for the upcoming friendlies. Conte has made it clear he is not going to use these matches to do many experiments, instead he wants to continue building and solidifying the Azzurri with “his” men.
It might have been a good opportunity to give some new faces a chance but Conte believes otherwise.
At a press conference today, Conte reinforced that belief with two key statements.
“We played the European qualifying campaign with a core set of players that led us to winning the group unbeaten. I have to take this into consideration.”
“Those who understand the meaning of the shirt are the ones I call up”
Here is a breakdown by position.
Goalkeepers:
Buffon, Padelli, Perin, Sirigu
No surprise here, Marchetti (Lazio) could have been considered as well.
Defenders:
Acerbi, Antonelli, Astori, Barzagli, Bonucci, Chiellini, Darmian, De Sciglio, De Silvestri
Considering Inter has conceded the least amount of goals so far this season in Serie A, it is surprising that neither Ranocchia or Santon were called up. Perhaps Conte wanted to give a chance to Acerbi and De Silvestri to see what they can do as they are returning from injury.
Midfielders:
Bonaventura, Candreva, Cerci, El Shaarawy, Florenzi, Giaccherini, Marchisio, Montolivo, Parolo, Soriano
Considering the injuries to Pirlo, De Rossi, Verratti and Bertolacci, it was in the midfield that one would think Conte would bring in some new players but that was not the case. Napoli were snubbed as both Jorginho (who was expected to be called up) and Valdifiori were left out. Conte ignored the youth and left Bernardeschi (Fiorentina), Baselli (Torino) and Benassi (Torino) with the U21 or home. Also ignored was Vazquez (Palermo).
Forwards:
Gabbiadini, Eder, Okaka, Pellè, Zaza
With Giovinco recovering from injury and Rossi still not 100% , there was an opportunity to inject some youthful enthusiasm with Insigne or Berardi but they were ignored. Conte decided to bring back Okaka who has been playing well with Anderlecht in Belgium, and give seldom used Gabbiadini a shot.
Conclusion
Conte has a very good idea who he wants to bring to next summer’s Euro, and figures now is not the time to add a new player to the mix for his evaluation. Any new player never called up under Conte would have to play the season of their career between now and June to get a look. Rather than experiment with new blood, it looks like Conte is going to experiment with the formation. Will be interesting to see what he does tactics wise in the next few days.
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