NAPOLI – Roberto Mancini alongside his captain, Marco Verratti who, as he says, “I haven’t lost the desire to play, despite the latest difficulties at PSG”. Italy is there, a new path begins again, target for Euro 2024. The coach finds himself in the same situation in which he gathered Italy five years ago, with the team at the time eliminated from the World Cup in Russia, For the second time puts up the pieces, with the aim of going to the next European Championship, after winning the last one. But the goals are always the same. We have to go back to two years ago, with the same enthusiasm. We have gone from a great emotion like the European Championship to a great disappointment like the failure to qualify for the World Cup. It was a big disappointment, we didn’t deserve it, but in
all this we qualified twice to the final four of the Nations League. Now we leave, we have forgotten the disappointment. We have young players who are not here with us today but who would have been and who will be here until next November: we leave tomorrow, we want to qualify, win the Nations League and
then play the European Championship in the best possible way as reigning champions».
Up front is the usual England, against which Italy is unbeaten in six games and it was precisely against the English that Italy achieved the success of Euro 2020. «The match against England has become a classic. We’ll play this match tomorrow for the fourth time in two years against a national team that is among the best teams in the world. They have extraordinary players, the team has also been unlucky in recent years but I expect a difficult match tomorrow. We want to win, it won’t be easy but we want to start well».
Tomorrow he risks his debut retegui, native incorporated into the national team due to lack of credible Italian strikers. Mancio launches it with a particular comparison. “I’ve heard that he is similar to Denis, he reminds me of the first Batistuta. But let him work, he needs time. Getting from Argentina to Italy like this, and not in a club team, isn’t that simple. It takes some time, but the boy is polite and smart. He is a good centre-forward, young».
