Mancini opens Italy's camp with 32: Gatti added, Gianluca Mancini out, four first call-ups, third place already secure

Italy opened their camp for the last two Nations League group games at Coverciano, the federation’s training centre outside Florence, on Monday with 32 players, after the coach Roberto Mancini added the Juventus defender Federico Gatti on Sunday evening. The Italian federation’s website, which carried the list, also recorded the one change forced on him: Gianluca Mancini of Roma withdrew injured and Matteo Palma of Udinese was called up in his place, for the first time. Italy play France at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in Milan on Thursday 12 November at 20:45 CET, then go to Belgium on Sunday 15 November.

The squad

The federation’s list of Monday morning has three goalkeepers, Marco Carnesecchi of Atalanta, Gianluigi Donnarumma of Manchester City and Guglielmo Vicario of Juventus. The defenders are Ahanor of Crystal Palace, Alessandro Bastoni and Federico Dimarco of Inter, Riccardo Calafiori of Arsenal, Gatti, Ghilardi of Roma, Michael Kayode of Brentford, Palestra of Chelsea, Palma and Giorgio Scalvini of Atalanta. In midfield are Nicolò Barella of Inter, Cassano and Ricci of Como, Doumbia of Sporting, Nicolò Fagioli of Fiorentina, Davide Frattesi of Lazio, Lontani of Parma, Pisilli of Roma, Romano of Cagliari and Sandro Tonali of Tottenham. The forwards are Cambiaghi of Bologna, Cissé of Milan, Francesco Pio Esposito of Inter, Sebastiano Esposito of Sassuolo, Koleosho of Paris FC, Liberali of Como, Gianluca Scamacca of Atalanta, Vergara of Napoli and Nicolò Zaniolo of Udinese.

Corriere dello Sport, reporting the original list of 31 on 5 November, counted four players who had never been called up before: Cassano, born in 2009, Lontani, born in 2008, Cissé, born in 2006, and Liberali, born in 2007. Tuttosport noted that Giacomo Calò of Frosinone was left out. The two youngest, Cassano and Lontani, train with the seniors for a few days only, the federation says, before leaving for Italy’s under-18 and under-19 squads, which have tournaments of their own this month.

What Mancini said

Mancini gave his press conference at Coverciano at 13:30 CET on Monday. “Abbiamo l’obbligo di cercare e di convocare i giovani per conoscerli direttamente,” he said, in the federation’s account: we have an obligation to look for young players and call them up, to get to know them directly. He said Federico Bernardeschi, Federico Chiesa and Bryan Cristante had been left out as the squad gets younger, that Chiesa “could return soon”, and that Calò’s omission was a matter of age.

On the group, he was precise. Italy are already sure of finishing no lower than third, which the federation says is enough to be seeded for the draw for the European Championship qualifiers on 6 December in Belfast. The aim is the top two and a place in the quarter-finals. Beating France on Thursday may not be enough on its own, he said, because it depends on what Türkiye do against Belgium in the early game at 18:00 CET; beating Belgium on Sunday would make the quarter-finals certain whatever happens against France. France lead the group with 10 points from four games, Italy have seven, Belgium six and Türkiye none, counted from UEFA’s results.

What it changes for Thursday

The list answers the question Monday’s preview on this site could not: who Italy have. It is a squad built around the Inter block of Bastoni, Dimarco and Barella, with Donnarumma in goal and Tonali and Calafiori from England, and a long tail of players a casual reader will not know. Corriere dello Sport reported on 5 November that 57,000 tickets had been issued for San Siro. France, as this site reported on Monday from ESPN, are without William Saliba, Jules Koundé, Maxence Lacroix, Manu Koné and Ousmane Dembélé, and the Markets desk has written on how the price for the game moved on Monday night. No confirmed teams for either side as of 08:00 CET on Tuesday; they are due at about 19:30 CET on Thursday.