Here is the latest squad called up by Claudio Gentile for a U-21 friendly vs Poland next week. My understanding is that this is the '83 team, which will be assembled for the next round of European qualifying beginning this fall, although some of the players (eg De Rossi) are also on the current U-21 team, set to compete in next month's European championships: Agliardi (Brescia) Aquilani (Triestina) Bianchi (Cagliari) Bovo (Lecce) Cassano (Empoli) Chiellini (Livorno) Corvia, De Rossi (Roma) Donadel (Parma) Ferronetti (Triestina) Loviso (Bologna) Floro Flores (Sampdoria) Pepe (Palermo) Mantovani (Triestina) Padoin (Vicenza) Pagano (Sampdoria) Piccolo (Como) Potenza, Rosina (Parma).
Re: New batch of U-21s Cesare Bovo (Chievo) Daniele De Rossi (A.S.Roma) Marco Donadel (Parma) I have seen as regular members of their respective serie A teams. Outside of that the rest are very inexperienced i would think, but players such as Andrea Caracciolo and Andrea Barzagli came through this year to progress to the youth team and take semi regular positions. Daniele De Rossi i think will be called up to national team before 2006 u-21 championships and much like Antonio Cassano this year will be a great player to good even to play u-21. England and Holland u-21 teams have suffered most from their young players moving to ful national team and not participating in u-21 tournaments or else Italy would have a real challenge but Italy still produce world beaters at this age group and one of the first European championships teams to win consisting Francesco Totti, Alessandro Nesta and Gianluigi Buffon have become national team stars and now must show that they are capable of winning on full national scale.
Re: New batch of U-21s Cesare Bovo had one of Lecce's goals against Inter a couple of weeks ago. Nick
Re: New batch of U-21s Welcome to the boards Nick. Congratulations to Lecce on guaranteeing themselves another season in Serie A (with room to spare!).
Re: New batch of U-21s Thanks. I have been following the site for about a month now. I am about the only Lecce or Fiorentina fan, though, so I have kept out of it until now. . And yes, Lecce has been playing really well as of late and they are, I believe, the youngest team in Serie A. Nick
Re: New batch of U-21s Lecce do have a very young team if i am not mistaken but with all the talk of Javier Chevanton leaving could mean a long, desperate fight for relegation next year. Valeri Bojinov is touted as the next big thing and is extremely young can't see Lecce holding on to him for too long. Has Bojinov decided to play for Bulgaria or Italy yet? Lecce will always be famous to me for producing the irreplaceable ANTONIO CONTE.
Re: New batch of U-21s "but with all the talk of Javier Chevanton leaving could mean a long, desperate fight for relegation next year." -----He is definitely dangerous and he gives Lecce a great spark. It seems that they are almost always on the attack... I think, though, that he takes way too many dives. I will never be a Chevanton "fan" though I am glad he was around this year. "Has Bojinov decided to play for Bulgaria or Italy yet?" -----The last I heard he was slated to play for Bulgaria's Under-21 squad versus Romania in a couple of weeks. Nick
Re: New batch of U-21s The new kids on the block defeated Poland in yesterday's friendly 3-1. Unfortunately, it wasn't televised, but Parma's Alessandro Rosina scored twice and Cagliari's Rolando Bianchi had the other goal for Italy. http://www.channel4.com/sport/football_italia/may11l.html Having trouble finding an article with the lineups, etc.
Re: New batch of U-21s All the 3 goals were beautiful. I only watched the second half and the match was not much impressive. They were saying that the first half was a very good one, surprisingly so also. Rosina seems to be very very promising but he is not the only one. Gentile was satisfied by the performance. He said also that italian teams are investing much on youth and the results can be seen.
Re: New batch of U-21s There is more good info on some of these kids in this article: http://www.uefa.com/competitions/Under19/news/Kind=8192/newsId=208259.html It's about last year's U-19 team which won the European championship. Many of those players have graduated to the new U-21 team.
Re: New batch of U-21s Supposedly, Aquilani might be going to Chievo on loan in exchange for Simone Perrotta going to Roma. But I haven't heard anything for a few days. Mainly, I wanted to post this because I was sick of seeing "Azzurri in BAD shape" on my forum list.
Re: U21 Euro Championship qualifier: Italy v Norway & Moldova [R] looking good so far. seems like our u21 is always better than the NT
Re: U21 Euro Championship qualifier: Italy v Norway & Moldova [R] Probably because they haven't been pampered by humongous Serie A salaries nor have they had their heads blown up by the press.
U-21 vs Slovenia and Belarus [R] Here they are: Full squad - Goalkeepers: Agliardi (Brescia), Berni (Ternana), Cassano (Empoli). Defenders: Bovo (Parma), Chiellini (Fiorentina), Ferronetti (Parma), Mantovani (Torino), Piccolo (Reggina), Potenza (Parma), Zambelli (Brescia). Midfielders: Aquilani (Roma), Biondini (Vicenza), Donadel (Sampdoria), Loviso (Bologna), Montolivo (Atalanta), Pagano (Sampdoria), Rosina (Parma). Forwards: Bianchi (Cagliari), Floro Flores (Perugia), Pazzini (Atalanta), Pepe (Piacenza). I expect the Oct 12 game vs Belarus will be on RAI International.
Re: U-21 vs Slovenia and Belarus [R] Radio broadcast of the game going on right now on www.radio.rai.it with a text cast at www.gazzetta.com . It's 0-0 at halftime. Italy's lineup: Agliardi, Potenza, Mantovani, Bovo, Chiellini, Rosina, Aquilani, Donadel, Lazzari, Pazzini, Bianchi. Many of these guys played on the U-19 team which won the UEFA championship in 2003. Potenza, Mantovani, Chiellini, Aquilani, and Pazzini were all on the squad that year. So it looks good for Italy to continue the tradition of excellence at this competition.
Re: U-21 vs Slovenia and Belarus [R] Slovenia goes down to 10 men 14 minutes into the second half. BTW, Slovenia currently sits second in the group with 4 pts from 2 games. Italy has 6 pts after two games. And as I type that, Italy has taken the lead 1-0 on a goal by Bianchi.
Re: U-21 vs Slovenia and Belarus [R] Italy doubles their lead with Chiellini scoring off a cross from Potenza. Both goals off of headers.
Re: U-21 vs Slovenia and Belarus [R] And 3-0 is the final score. Italy takes a commanding lead in the group, helped by Moldova's upset of Belarus, which had defeated Norway in their first match. Italy 9 pts (played 3) Slovenia 4 pts (3) Belarus 3 pts (2) Moldova 3 pts (3) Scotland 1 pt (1) Norway 0 pts (2)
Re: U-21 vs Slovenia and Belarus [R] well done, Rolando! (Bianchi) A very good performance with goals and assists. I like this U21 it has many interesting players and I am not talking about the starting line-up only. I guess it is a positive side effect of the financial crisis. All the teams are investing much more on youth and "homemade" players. This U21 seems to have less potential in attack than the last one who won the european championship (mainly because of Gilardino) but overall much more potential in midfield and defense. But being some midfielders (aquilani, montolivo) and some defenders (Chiellini) very good attacking, the overall impression is that this U21 is stronger than the last one, even attacking. And De Rossi could be there.
Re: U-21 vs Slovenia and Belarus [R] Chiellini is suspended and Daniele Corvia is not at full strength, so Gentile has called Torino scoring sensation Fabio Quagliarella and Brescia defender Simone Dalla Mano into the squad for Wednesday's game. Several of the players (Mantovani, Pepe, Berni, Cassano) will leave training camp to play with their Serie B clubs tomorrow.
Re: U-21 vs Slovenia and Belarus [R] Today's game will be shown live on RAI International at 3 pm Eastern US Time. Here is the probable lineup for Italy: Agliardi Potenza Bovo Piccolo Mantovani Rosina Aquilani Donadel Pagano Bianchi Pazzini
Re: U-21 vs Slovenia and Belarus [R] Watched the game last night. Italy came from behind to get the 2-1 victory over a good Belarus side. Recall that the last edition of Belarus' U-21s qualified for the final 8-team European tournament and in fact beat Italy, who recovered to win the championship. I was really impressed by Rosina who made an amazing touch to set up Bianchi for the equalizing goal just before halftime (even if he may have been a teensy bit offside on the cross). And Bianchi as well. Comparisons are being made between Bianchi and Gilardino with Bianchi well ahead of Gila at THIS point in his U-21 career. Aquilani got the game-winner on a cross by substitute Quagliarella. Italy now stands a full 7 points clear of the closest rival (Slovenia) after 4 games. Too bad in this competition, finishing 1st only gets you to the playoffs. http://www.channel4.com/sport/football_italia/eurogames/ita21bel.html