MILAN – A total of 13 Milan players were called-up by their respective national sides for the international break. They were as follows:

Mattia De Sciglio and Andrea Bertolacci were both named in the Italy squad by Antonio Conte for the Euro 2016 qualifiers. The first one pitted the Azzurri against Malta on the 3rd of September and ended in a 1-0 victory for Italy. Bertolacci played the first 55 minutes of the match while De Sciglio was an unused sub. Up next for Italy was another Euro 2016 qualifier versus Bulgaria on the 6th of September and finished 1-0 to the Azzurri. Bertolacci didn’t feature versus Bulgaria however after leaving the Italy camp with an injury sustained in the first Euro 2016 qualifier versus Malta. De Sciglio on the other hand played the full 90 minutes.

Alessio Romagnoli and Jose Mauri meanwhile were part of Luigi Di Biagio’s Italy Under-21 squad that beat Slovenia 1-0 on the 8th of September in Reggio Emilia. The former was handed a start.

Keisuke Honda was named in the Japan squad for the two World Cup qualifiers. Japan faced Cambodia at home on the 3rd of September and the Milan no.10 opened the scoring in a 3-0 win.    He also scored the final goal on 74 minutes in the 6-0 win over Afghanistan on the 8th of September.

Cristian Zapata and Carlos Bacca on the other hand were both called-up to the Colombia squad for the friendly with Peru in the USA on the 8th of September. Bacca was on the scoresheet in a 1-1 draw on what was his birthday.

New addition Juraj Kucka, fresh from making his Milan debut in the 2-1 victory over Empoli in round 2 of Serie A, was amongst the 25 players called up to the Slovakia squad for the Euro 2016 qualifiers. On the 5th of September Slovakia lost to Spain (Kucka did not feature) and then played out a 0-0 draw with Ukraine on the 8th of September. Kucka played the entire match.

Tocontinue, Rodrigo Ely played part of the second half for the Brazil Olympic team in the match versus France Olympic in Le Mans on the 8th of September. France ran out 2-1 winners.

Davide Calabria was amongst the 23 players called up to the Italy U-20 side that played Germany (at home) on the 3rd of September in the opening match of the Four Nations. The Germans ran out 2-0 winners. Finally, there were 3 other rossoneri representing the blue of Italy too in the form of Ivan De Santis, Manuel Locatelli and Luca Vido. The Milan youth sector players all came off the bench for the Italy U-19s in a goalless stalemate with Holland.