National team, 29 summoned: Luciano Spalletti’s first Italy is born

There is no shortage of news in the new National.

Luciano Spalletti’s first Italy starts with 29 players. They are the chosen ones of the new technical commissioner of the national team, who has summoned them ahead of the matches with North Macedonia (scheduled for Sept. 9) and then with Ukraine (Sept. 12) valid for the Euro 2024 qualifiers.

There'è an absolute first, that of Casale, and some returns (Biraghi, Locatelli, Mancini, and also Zaccagni and Zaniolo). There are also some excellent exclusions: Acerbi, Berardi, Scamacca and especially the midfield duo Verratti-Jorginho that represented the backbone of Roberto Mancini's Italy that won Euro 2020.

Here, then, is the complete list of those called up for Luciano Spalletti's Italy:

Keepers: Gianluigi Donnarumma (Paris Saint Germain), Alex Meret (Napoli), Ivan Provedel (Lazio), Guglielmo Vicario (Tottenham)

Defenders: Alessandro Bastoni (Inter), Cristiano Biraghi (Fiorentina), Nicolò Casale (Lazio), Matteo Darmian (Inter), Giovanni Di Lorenzo (Napoli), Federico Dimarco (Inter), Gianluca Mancini (Roma), Alessio Romagnoli (Lazio), Giorgio Scalvini (Atalanta), Leonardo Spinazzola (Roma)

Central midfielders: Nicolò Barella (Inter), Bryan Cristante (Roma), Davide Frattesi (Inter), Manuel Locatelli (Juventus), Lorenzo Pellegrini (Roma), Matteo Pessina (Monza), Sandro Tonali (Newcastle)

Forwarders: Federico Chiesa (Juventus), Wilfried Gnonto (Leeds), Ciro Immobile (Lazio), Matteo Politano (Napoli), Giacomo Raspadori (Napoli), Mateo Retegui (Genoa), Mattia Zaccagni (Lazio), Nicolò Zaniolo (Aston Villa).