“Italy’s Euro 2024 Hopes Rest on Roman Talent”
Footballers from AS Roma and Lazio, as well as Roman natives, are forming the core of the Italy Men’s National Team for the 2024 European Championship.
Traditionally, Italian national team coaches have relied on a nucleus of players from one or two clubs to build their squads. For instance, during the 1982 World Cup, six Juventus players were regulars under Enzo Bearzot, who even started as many as nine Bianconeri players four years earlier when Italy finished fourth.
Current Italy coach Luciano Spalletti doesn’t have the same advantage, though he compared today’s Inter players to the Juventus contingent of 1982. Despite not being able to construct his starting lineup with players from a single club, Il Corriere dello Sport notes that Spalletti can draw heavily from players based in one city: Rome.
The Italy squad for Euro 2024 includes five Inter players, which would have been six if Francesco Acerbi hadn’t withdrawn due to a groin injury. Additionally, there are four players each from Napoli and Juventus.
Lazio’s Mattia Zaccagni and AS Roma’s Lorenzo Pellegrini, Gianluca Mancini, Bryan Cristante, and Stephan El Shaarawy represent the Roman clubs. Pellegrini has started in Italy’s first two matches at Euro 2024. Spalletti values the team dynamics, believing that friendships on the field can enhance performance.
“If two players in the same area of the pitch are friends, they help each other more and are willing to sacrifice for each other,” Spalletti told Il Corriere dello Sport.
Besides club players from Rome, the squad includes several Roman natives. Atalanta striker Gianluca Scamacca and Inter midfielder Davide Frattesi, childhood friends from Fidenae, north of Rome’s historical center, were both part of the youth academies of Lazio and Roma.
Bologna’s Riccardo Calafiori, originally a Roma youth product, has played for Genoa, Basel, and now Bologna, transitioning from left-winger to left-back, and then to center-back.
Napoli-owned midfielder Michael Folorunsho, born and raised in Rome’s Tuscolano district, came through Lazio’s youth academy and played for their Primavera team under Simone Inzaghi but left as a free agent.
Given that Rome is Italy’s capital, it’s fitting that the Azzurri have a strong Roman presence. However, these players will need to unite to keep Italy in Euro 2024 and avoid an early exit.
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