Who got the Call!?

March 20th, 2011 | by: Marco |

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As is the case prior to a European Qualification match, an Exhibition match, or any International match – C. Prandelli sat down at his solid oak desk on Sunday morning at FIGC WORLD HEADQUARTERS and made a couple long distance calls.

Here’s who will be lining up for the Azzurri this week against Slovenia and the Ukraine.

Goalkeepers: Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus), Salvatore Sirigu (Palermo), Emiliano Viviano (Bologna)
Defenders: Davide Astori (Cagliari), Federico Balzaretti (Palermo), Leonardo Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini (Juventus), Domenico Criscito (Genoa), Daniele Gastaldello (Sampdoria), Christian Maggio (Napoli), Andrea Ranocchia (Inter Milan), Davide Santon (Cesena).

Midfielders:Alberto Aquiliani and Claudio Marchisio (Juventus), Stefano Mauri (Lazio), Riccardo Montolivo (Fiorentina), Thiago Motta (Inter Milan), Antonio Nocerino (Palermo), Marco Parolo (Cesena).

Forwards:Antonio Cassano (AC Milan), Alberto Gilardino (Fiorentina), Sebastian Giovinco (Parma), Alessandro Matri (Juventus), Giampaolo Pazzini (Inter Milan), Giuseppe Rossi (Villareal/ESP).

First Impressions.

I’m going to leave out the obvious De Rossi and Balotelli banter. If you have no idea what I’m talking about just back track to a previous post of mine pertaining to this subject. In fact, these two are not the glaring omissions on Prandelli’s recent list.

I’d argue, Abate, the young Milan right back who had a tremendous impact against the Spurs during the Champions League second leg is conspicuously missing in action. Indeed this was one player I was hoping to see line up for the Azzurri and fully deserved the opportunity. Another option missing is in attack, is Cesena’s own Giaccherini who has shown some amazing pace in attack this season; instead of him his 26 year old teammate Marco Parolo has been given the nod by Prandelli. On a side note from the Cesena world, who here thought Rosina was pretty impressive against Juventus the other week when he came on in the second half?

We have returned.

Welcome back to the Azzurri C. Marchisio and A. Gilardino. It turns out Prandelli continues to have faith in a striker I have very little respect for – Gilardino. A player who, like my query with Ibrahimovic, displays week in and week out what is wrong with Calcio.

Other than that.

Putting aside my grip with the call ups, I am interested to see how well this version of the team performs. Although I see little merit to suggest why Santon was called up over Abate, I do hope Santon get’s the nod so we can build something with him at the RB position. Balzaretti on the left is a lock, especially for our qualifier.

I am along the lines of going with Rossi and Cassano being featured together in attack, I don’t see how Prandelli has been able to justify Rossi as a replacement for Cassano, when in fact they are different players able to fulfill different capacities on the pitch.

Here’s my ideal lineup.

Buffon

Maggio - Ranocchia – Chiellini – Balzaretti

Marchisio – Aquilani

Rossi – Cassano – Giovinco

Pazzini

*Our opposition should be ‘easy’ enough to allow a little flair and attack in our game this week. Although, as I will outline in the preview a little later, Slovenia can be a tricky customer.

Final thought.

Let me leave you with a final thought on Super Mario Balotelli. How can you not love this guy. As I’ve said before he will start maturing once we – and by we I mean the media and his managers – stop treating him like a child.