i hope a lot of these lineups are 2-4 years down the road at least i doubt were going to have line ups where we have many players that lack any club european action or international level experience at once who knows.. some of these guys may not realize their potential... im all for giving young players chances...but imagine the horror if we did this in the past and committed to a team full of giovincos, ranocchias, santons, arturo lupoli, macheda, etc
Well if he is healthy he should be our new main guy uptop He is healthy now and was healthy for the World Cup Looks like my take on his exclusion was very close to reality. Prandelli catered to some players and that is what pissed off the senators. Anyway. This is off topic. I agree that we should restart from the 4-3-3
I actually see that formation being a modified 4-1-4-1... Got a lot of pace with Insigne, Gabbiadini, Berardi, Santon and Florenzi in there and a good balance between offence and defense.
I'm surprised to see so many lineups without Darmian. He was by far Prandelli's best pick. Edit: Sirigu Darmian Rugani De Rossi De Sciglio Verratti Marchisio Berardi Florenzi Bonaventura Rossi
Darmian has taken over the RB position. Something I think is paramount is getting El Shaarawy healthy and back playing football at a high level. Back playing football in general. He's played well against Barca in the CL and scored wonder goals in that competition. There's no comparison between his talent level and overall quality than the likes of Insigne, Cerci, Candreva, Bonaventura, Gabbiadini.
I feel like many haven't watched Donati play.. Darmian and him are in direct competition for that RB spot as far as I'm concerned.
That's how I feel about Chiellini. Not sure how I am the only person here (as I'm the only one who could give two shizzes about the NT) who has ever seen him play outside of Serie A, seemingly.
Please….SES is a complete mental wimp. I rather have all 5 of those other guys over him on the team. When Balotelli showed up at Milan, instead of trying to form the ultimate alliance with Super Mario, he took his little ball and went home. Closed up shop and whimpered away for the second half of the season. As down as I am on Balotelli, I would still rather have him on the Azzurri over SES by a country mile. And it remains to be seen what his career will look like after the injuries anyway.
A young midfielder to watch for the future would be Stefano Sturaro (93) Genoa. He played quite a few matches last season, he's raw but a hard worker and is good at taking set pieces. It's been reported he has been bought by Juve and loaned back to Genoa for the upcoming season.
half of these guys will turn out to be nobodys or just average, remember that shit hot yout forestieri? russotto? rosina? foggia? motolivo (what happened to this guy?) fortunately others we've yet to hear of will emerge
In each of these respective areas these are the players who should be given a shot with the NT: GK: Scuffet Fiorillo DEF: Donati Fornasier Rugani Zappacosta Antei Ogbonna MID: Bonaventura Florenzi Baselli Sturaro Cigarini Vives FOR: Berardi Zaza Bernardeschi Gabbiadini El Shaarawy Okaka Paloschi If some of these guys don't pan out so be it. Italy has 2 years to get their shit together before they continue to have these debacles on the world stage. I'm sorry, I have the most love and respect for players like Buffon and Pirlo, but at this point they're doing nothing but hurting Italian soccer and halting its future. Future national teams CANNOT revolve around these players. New guys have to come in and show what they're worth. They have to be the "next" Pirlo or Baresi or Maldini or Buffon, etc. Enough is enough.
We have a great young keeper (Lezzerini) in our system, too. Sadly he was injured for that match against Torino or Chievo, whichever just beat us on PKs a couple weeks ago. And Ogbonna is, strictly speaking, too old for this list.
Cigarini? He's not on the Prospects List Thanks for the suggestion, I'll look to add his name. As for Ogbonna, he is not on the list either.
Updated – JUNE 27: New Additions (italicized below): Luca Lezzerini, Davide Zappacosta , Michele Fornasier, Jorginho, Cristian Battoccio, and Stefano Sturaro GOALIES: Simone Scuffet -18 Nicola Leali -21 Francesco Bardi -22 Mattia Perin -21 Simone Colombi – 22 Luca Lezzerini -19 DEFENSE: Mario Sampirisi – 21 -rcb Giulio Donati – 24 –rb Luca Caldirola – 23 –lcb Matteo Bianchetti – 21 –rcb Cristiano Biraghi – 21 –lb Vasco Regini – 23 –lb Davide Santon – 23 –lb/rb Mattia De Sciglio – 21 –rb/lb Matteo Darmian -24 -rb Federico Ceccherini -21 –rcb Alessio Romagnoli -19 –lcb Nicola Murru -21 –lb Cristiano Piccini -21 –rb Luca Antei –21 -cb Daniele Rugani –19 -cb Michele Camporese -21 –cb Marco Capuano -22 –lcb Alberto Masi -21 –rcb Davide Zappacosta – 22 –rb Michele Fornasier -23 -cb CENTRAL MIDFIELD: Daniele Baselli -22 Marco Benassi – 19 Marco Verratti – 21 Federico Viviani – 22 Fausto Rossi – 23 Danilo Cataldi – 19 Lorenzo Crisetig – 21 Luca Marrone – 24 Nicola Sansone – 22 Marco Crimi – 24 Andrea Bertolacci – 23 Andrea Poli -24 Bryan Cristante -19 Jorginho -22 Cristian Battoccio -22 Stefano Sturaro -21 WINGERS: Giacomo Bonaventura – 24 –LW/LM Alessandro Florenzi – 23 –RW/RM Lorenzo Insigne -23 -LW Riccardo Saponara –22 -RW/LW Ezequiel Schelotto – 25 –RW Stephen El Shaarawy – 21 –LW Roberto Insigne – 20 –RW Simone Verdi – 21 – LW Federico Bernardeschi – 20 –RW/LW STRIKERS: Andrea Belotti – 20 Ciro Immobile -24 Domenico Berardi -19 Simone Zaza -22 Manolo Gabbiadini -22 Mattia Destro -23 Fabio Borini -23 Mario Balotelli -23 Samuele Longo -22 Alberto Paloschi -24
I am still shocked that Prandelli left out players such ans Poli , Florenzi and Pasqual and picked Aquaman and Motta.... Btw, i hope that Inzaghi can turn AC Milan's fortune.Hope that he can blood youngsters in the squad. Both Conte and Montella had a great transition from a player to a top class manager who plays good football.Italy need to breed more managers like Montella and Conte.Hope Inzaghi could be the next one on the list. Btw, is El Shaaraway leaving Milan?? Btw i remebered how awesome was Aquaman at Roma but move to Liverpool destroyed his career.I think Italian youngsters should think twice before accepting pffers abroad.Not everyone can be a Veratti or Rossi. Look at the prospects who hasn't enjoyed success abroad: Lupoli,Foriestri,Santon,Macheda,Petrucci,Borini(he still has hope imho) and i guess there are others whom i have missed out.
Something is lacking in our talent development. It's hard to put a finger on it. We have some great youth teams (runners up in Europe last year), but then between the ages of 20-23, we have so many players enter these black holes. I see this in Italy more than any other country. The Dutch team we beat at the Euros last year brought a lot of those U21 players to this World Cup. We barely brought any of ours and they sat on the bench for the most part. One great example is Giulio Donati. He's already 24. He's a great player and had an outstanding U21 tourney last summer. No fckin Italian club steps up to invest in him and he has to go to Leverkusen. Donati himself has commented how backwards Italy is. In Germany, he says that they regularly have 17-18 year olds training with the first team. In Italy they are stuck on Primavera teams or loaned out to Serie C to develop. My theory is that this is part of the Italian mentality in general right now. There is a real deference to the older generations. Older Italians are living longer and not moving out of senior positions to make way for the young. Youth unemployment is huge in Italy and the birth rate is quite low. An inability to trust youth seems embedded in the culture right now. Another theory I have is that Italians lack strength training programs at the level of other countries. Our players for the most part are pretty frail. Look at Marchisio who is supposed to be our "enforcer". No muscle mass at all. While guys like Messi are roiding up, our players seem to never pick up a weight. That affects their ability to be muscled off the ball and affects their short burst speed. Where are the guys like Cannavaro, Gattuso, Perrotta, etc who put the time in the weight room to get stronger? Why aren't clubs conditioning their players more? I feel like we are athletically behind other countries. It is more than just picking future stars based on potential. We need these clubs to TRUST them and to GROOM them. Without that, we are simply walking in place.
@Stamos Great idea for a post and well done. You know more about our younger players than I do and I appreciate that you and others are teaching me something. It is also nice to talk about the future, which to me seems brighter than for some others. Well done ragazzo! Having Verratti in the midfield and Giuseppe Rossi up front is a very good start to a national team in my opinion. Both are or will be soon fuoriclasse in my opinion. This is assuming good health for both of course. I also like the idea of De Rossi as a sweeper. All of this, of course depends on the new CT. If Capello is available after Russia's performance, I worry that he might take this job and take us back to the past. That would be a big mistake in my opinion, as I do not see the players to do this.
I think physical conditioning is a huge factor. At under-21's it's not such a big issue but when you look at players coming through the ranks, like Giovinco and now Insigne, you'd think it's obvious that these guys must bulk up if they want to make it at senior level. I notice that Italy doesn't have the same level of physical focus like American or Australian sports --where alot of gym work is a major part of their development.
I know Hachim Mastour is too young, but he is probably the best prospect right now. Don't know how he will pan out, but everyone who's seen him play says that he is the absolute best talent in all of Italy right now.