Azzurri News for the Day + Olympics Preview

News updates for the day:

-Some of the big guns over in England (Man u, Liverpool, Arsenal) are reportedly trying to get Giovinco. This is just a rumor so I wouldn’t take it too seriously, but if it happens, Secco better get his ass out of Italy and into hiding. Cause I’m pretty sure nearly every single Juve fan out there will hunt him down. Hell I’m not even a Juve fan and I’d join in. You just can’t sell one of the brightest young talents in Italy- hell, in all of football. Gio is class and NEEDS to stay in Italy, and to be fair, he should stay on Juve. Hey, they had him first. If they can’t see his quality though I’m sure Roma would love to have him. Or any other Serie A team for that matter.

But when’s the next time we’ll see the actual team? The Olympics are next month but that’s only for the U-23 guys (Well, mostly. Countries are allowed to have 3 players over that age, but Italy only called up 1 overage player- Rocchi from Lazio). So the next time we’ll really see the Azzurri is August 20th, in a friendly against Austria. That sounds easier on paper than Paris Hilton but don’t get your hopes too high- Italy hasn’t done all that well in the first games after a change of coach. Yeah, this time we have a great coach (back) but when Marcello first took over, we also lost a friendly or two. Despite the scoreline though we should see what kind of team he’s looking for- and rumor has it, it’ll be mostly a Juve-Fior team because they’re further ahead in training (with CL qualifiers and all), and Lippi wants guys who are fit and rearing to go.

And since the Olympics are only a few short weeks away, let’s start looking at those. To begin, here’s a list of the players called up for the team to represent Italy (Taken from here. Props to Soccerlens. Plagarism isn’t cool, guys. Always credit your sources.):

Coach:
Pierluigi Casiraghi

Goalkeepers:
Andrea Consigli (21) (Atalanta)
Emiliano Viviano (22) (Brescia)
Salvatore Sirigu (21) (Cremonese)

Defenders:
Salvatore Bocchetti (21) (Genoa)
Andrea Coda (23) (Udinese)
Domenico Criscito (21) (Genoa)
Paolo De Ceglie (21) (Juventus)
Lorenzo De Silvestri (20) (Lazio)
Marco Motta (22) (Udinese)
Andrea Ranocchia (20) (Arezzo)

Midfielders:
Ignazio Abate (21) (AC Milan)
Luca Cigarini (22) (Parma)
Daniele Dessena (21) (Parma)
Claudio Marchisio (22) (Juventus)
Riccardo Montolivo (23) (Fiorentina)
Antonio Nocerino (23) (Palermo)
Andrea Russotto (20) (Trevisio)
Antonio Candreva (21) (Udinese)

Strikers:
Robert Acquafresca (20) (Cagliari)
Sebastian Giovinco (21) (Juventus)
Tommaso Rocchi (30) (Lazio)
Giuseppe Rossi (21) (Villareal, Spain)

Next entry I’ll pick out the guys who I think will play the biggest role in getting the team to the gold. Feel free to post your predictions below.