Giorgio Scalvini, message for Gennaro Gattuso

Ready to get back on the field after the two bad injuries (the first to the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee a few days before Euro 2024, the second to his left shoulder at the end of January 2025) that have affected the last year and a half of his career, Giorgio Scalvini has clear ideas when it comes to the national team: his ambition is to return to wear the Azzurri jersey, getting to play in the 2026 World Cup.

The Atalanta player has already heard from Gennaro Gattuso: “He has given me very good feelings – told ‘La Gazzetta dello Sport’ the class of 2003, capable of playing both in the center of the defense and in the median, to ‘La Gazzetta dello Sport’ -, I hope to return to the national team also to meet him soon. And above all, having lost a European Championship in extremis, I hope to play the World Cup”.

Scalvini has accumulated eight appearances with the national team so far, between 2022 and 2024. His debut came in the 2022-2023 Nations League, in the June 14, 2022 match played in Mönchengladbach in which the Azzurri lost 5-2 to Germany. Among the key players in the Euro 2024 qualifiers, he had to forgo the call-up due to a knee injury, suffered in the replay of the league match between Atalanta and Fiorentina on June 2, 2024.

Returning to the field on Nov. 23, subbing for Toloi in the 3-1 loss to Parma in the league, Scalvini had to stop again on Jan. 29, 2025, when during the Champions League away match against Barcelona, which later ended 2-2, he succumbed to a shoulder injury that forced him to undergo surgery and a long layoff, which ended this summer.