2020 is about to come to a close and it was, all in all, a positive year on the pitch for the National Team. The Azzurri qualified for the UEFA Nations League finals and ended the year without defeat, with five wins and three draws from eight games played, continuing on from an impressive unbeaten run in 2019 (ten wins in ten games). Italy haven’t played so few games (eight) in a single calendar year since 1993.

In 2020, Head Coach Mancini called up 44 players, twelve of whom scored and eleven left their mark with at least an assist. The Azzurri scored 17 goals (2.1 per game) and conceded just two (0.25, the lowest average per game since 1990).

Nicolò Barella, Gianluigi Donnarumma and Manuel Locatelli made the most appearances this year with six apiece, though the goalkeeper played the most minutes (540), ahead of Barella (529) and Acerbi and Jorginho (450). Barella and Donnarumma also made the most starts (six).

Domenico Berardi was Italy's top scorer in 2020 with three goals, the first coming in the friendly against Moldova in Florence, and the other two in November’s Nations League fixtures and Poland and Bosnia & Herzegovina. Hot on his tail were El Shaarawy and Grifo with two goals each. The Sassuolo forward also had the most shots on target: five, one more that Belotti, El Shaarawy and Insigne.

Lorenzo Insigne leads the way in terms of assists as he set up three teammates to score. The Napoli winger also created more chances than any other Italy player (15, followed by Barella on 13) and took the most shots (15, followed by Belotti with 12).

The most prolific dribbler of the year was Nicolò Barella with ten completed, followed by Spinazzola with eight. Finally, the Italy player to have played the most passes was Francesco Acerbi; the Lazio defender distributed the ball 456 times, ahead of Jorginho (351) and Bonucci (324).

AZZURRI 'GOAL COLLECTION 2020'