By Anna Italia
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Italian Soccer Serie A

Italy – Belgium

Italy, not with the expected final game, will be playing for the UEFA Nations League third place.  Italy Head Coach Roberto Mancini is ready and encouraging the team to give all they have to win this game on Sunday 10 October 2021 at the Juventus Stadium in Turin, Italy at 15:00.   It’s a new start for Italy after Spain ended their record of 37 consecutive unbeaten games.

Mancini commenting on the match on the eve of the match during the press conference, “It’s an important match also to consolidate our position in the rankings.  We have embarked on a beautiful path and we need to improve further. We have young players who can play together for another five or six years. I was very proud the other night of how much they had done, both in the first half and in the second half: playing outnumbered against Spain is very difficult, but we managed to be compact and to score. There was a risk of losing by four or five to nil, but instead, the boys did very well”.

Among the news is that Belgium won’t count with Inter forward Romelu Lukaku and neither Hazard both struggling with muscle fatigue. Italy will be without Leonardo Bonucci who got a red card during the Semifinal game against Spain.

The Italian Football Federation (FIG) confirms that Davide Calabria left the camp this morning due to a muscular problem in his right adductor.

Mancini adding, “We have to look at the physical conditions of several players.    We will certainly change something. Trying something new means giving some other players the opportunity to prove their worth. This is important, also because some starters may be missing. And then there may be variations on the game”.

There may then be space for Giacomo Raspadori to feature, who already scored in September against Lithuania in his first match as a starter: “Tomorrow he will have the chance to play, but we must also remember that he is a young boy. He will have a great future, but we cannot give him all the responsibility”.

#Azzurri 🇮🇹

🎙 We spoke with Head Coach Roberto #Mancini as well as #Jorginho ahead of #ItalyBelgium tomorrow – Here’s what they had to say 👇@robymancio #NationsLeague #ITABEL #VivoAzzurro pic.twitter.com/9KOX4gxDqN

— Italy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@Azzurri_En) October 9, 2021

Mancini commented on the definition of a false nine “falso nove”, the coach pointed out: “You sometimes talk about the false nine, but Insigne and Chiesa are attackers, they are not defensive players. In the first half with Spain, the team was playing well, they had a couple of chances to score goals. Then when we were down to ten, everything changed. It’s clear that you have to give them some possession, but you also have to respect the quality of your opponents”.

Alongside the coach at the press conference was Jorginho, one of the five Azzurri included in the list of thirty candidates for the Ballon d’Or. In a season that saw him triumph with both Chelsea and with the national team, many point to him as Leo Messi’s most credible rival. Roberto Mancini has no doubts that he deserves the award: “Winning it would be incredible”, declared the Azzurri midfielder. “When I started it was so far away that today, being so close to winning it, it’s already incredibly beautiful. Dreaming small and dreaming big are the same thing, so it’s better to dream big”.

Echoing Courtois, Carrasco also diminished the importance of tomorrow’s final, but Jorginho doesn’t agree: “We have just lost a match and we want to get back to winning. We have a winning mentality and after the last knockout, tomorrow’s match is an opportunity. Belgium are a great national team, they have been first in the ranking for years. It’s never easy to play against them, you have to always stay on track and give your all”.

🇮🇹 👉  The Italian team on their way to Turin

UEFA Nations League
Third Place

Italy – Belgium
Sunday 10 October 2021
Juventus Stadium
Turin, Italy

15:00

Referee: Srdjan Jovanović (SRB)
Assistant Referee 1: Uroš Stojković (SRB)
Assistant Referee 2: Milan Mihajlović (SRB)
Fourth Official: Novak Simović (SRB)
VAR: Marco Fritz (GER)
AVAR 1: Christopher Kavanagh (ENG)
AVAR 2: Lee Betts (ENG)
AVAR 3: Pol van Boekel (NED)
Referee Observer: Carlos Velasco Carballo (ESP)