Can the national team be revived? The squad rotation that could work in Mancini’s favour

Mancini’s disappointing second debut in charge of the men’s national football team against Belgium (a 0–2 defeat that could have been even worse) has perhaps made the manager realise that the days of fond memories of Euro 2021 are over. And that trying to replicate what had worked back then – and only back then – is unlikely to work again. On the other hand, more than four years have passed and Italy, once euphoric at the belief that the worst was over, has realised that the worst was not over. Quite the contrary. It was yet to come.

And so Roberto Mancini has decided that it is time to start trusting those he had deemed worthy of the Azzurri shirt but had kept on the sidelines, as if they were the last possible resort in an attempt to revive a half-dead body. Because the first version of the (not-so-)new Italy carried with it everything that was wrong with the old one: a fear of failure and a certain sense of arrogance.

The approach, however, is not too dissimilar to the one used against Belgium: a conservative reshuffle. A few adjustments, not least with a view to the other two matches the national team will face. In short, it’s a case of rotation. With the hope that it’s not just a matter of rotation.

Michael Kayode and Issa Doumbia are set to make their debuts for Italy. The former is a 22-year-old full-back for Brentford, whilst the latter is a 22-year-old midfielder for Sporting Lisbon. Giorgio Scalvini, a 23-year-old centre-back for Atalanta with nine caps for Italy and long regarded as the ‘enfant prodige’ of the Italian defence, will start the match. All three are considered very young. This is one of the main problems with Italian football: regarding players as very young when they already have several years’ experience in the top European leagues (with the exception of Doumbia, who moved in the summer from Venezia in Serie B to the Champions League with the Portuguese side).

Roberto Mancini tried to rely on experience; he ended up with a squad of fairly experienced players, driven by a fear of failure but too arrogant to admit it. Certainly not all of them, but a large majority certainly were.

The new signings, alongside Nicolò Cambiaghi – one of the few to have performed well against Belgium and himself a young player despite being twenty-five, turning twenty-six in December – and Davide Frattesi, who has been in superb form since joining Lazio, will try to instil the optimism needed to play football.

Will that be enough? Not necessarily. But at the very least it’s a sign – admittedly a weak and somewhat slapdash one, but at least it’s something.