Turkey vs. Italy: Roberto Mancini Returns to the Topic of Nicolò Barella’s Exclusion and Takes Everyone by Surprise

Just a few hours before Monday night’s Nations League match against Turkey, Italy’s head coach Roberto Mancini spoke to RAI reporters, addressing the players left off the roster for the away game in Bursa—notably Nicolò Barella, who remained at Coverciano along with Honest Ahanor, Diego Coppola, Samuele Inacio, Eddy Kouadio, Daniel Maldini, Gianluca Mancini, Massimo Pessina, Samuele Ricci, and Mohamed Alì Zoma.

The Italy coach had some surprising words for Barella, one of the veterans of the Italian squad with 71 appearances (two of them as captain) and 10 goals. “It wasn’t difficult to leave Barella out,” said Mancini, “because even though we all know his value, we also have to take into account the need to evaluate younger players to integrate into the team’s plans for the coming years. Only in a game can we understand if they’re capable of being key players in certain situations.”

For the match against Turkey, Mancini has called up Gianluigi Donnarumma, Marco Carnesecchi, and Guglielmo Vicario as goalkeepers, while the defenders are Michael Kayode, Matteo Ruggeri, Riccardo Calafiori, Giorgio Scalvini, Daniele Ghilardi, Alessandro Bastoni, and Giovanni Di Lorenzo.

The midfield will feature Alessandro Romano, Nicolò Fagioli, Sandro Tonali, Rolando Mandragora, Issa Doumbia, and Davide Frattesi, while the attack will include Pio Esposito, Moise Kean, Giacomo Raspadori, Gianluca Scamacca, Nicolò Cambiaghi, Antonio Vergara, and Sebastiano Esposito.