Currently second in Group A of the UEFA Nations League, Italy are preparing to face the team above them League A Group 1: tomorrow evening at the Città del Tricolore, the Azzurri will come up against Poland at 20:45 CET. The build-up to the showdown hasn’t been easy for the team, despite the confidence boost that Wednesday’s comfortable win against Estonia will have given Mancini’s men. The Azzurri have been beset by injuries and problems relating to COVID-19. The latest player to withdraw from the squad is Roberto Gagliardini, whose test results were inconclusive following yesterday’s swabs. The player, although asymptomatic, has returned to Milan as a precautionary measure. This setback comes after Pietro Pellegri and Moise Bioty Kean also left Italy’s training camp, with Stefano Okaka Chuka then coming in to bolster the squad.

If the Azzurri didn’t already have enough problems, Leonardo Bonucci won’t be involved: “I’m returning to Turin tomorrow, I’ve put too much strain on my body. I wanted to play at all costs, but unfortunately I just can’t. I’ve pushed hard and grit my teeth in the past 20 days. In the last half an hour against Lazio, I was already struggling. The pain is getting worse, I’ve got no option but to withdraw.”

Italy, who will be led by Alberico Evani for the second time with Roberto Mancini still self-isolating, are thus in an emergency situation, with Ciro Immobile also out. During his pre-match press conference, Evani spoke about the doubts he has when it comes to the starting eleven tomorrow: “We’ll be missing several players, I’ve lost count of how many absentees we have. However, I’m not worried: this is more than a team, it’s a family that experiences joy and pain together. When there are difficulties, we become stronger. We’re not feeling sorry for ourselves and the eleven players who take to the pitch will try to do battle and beat Poland. We trust these guys completely, including those who will perhaps play out of position.

“As regards who will play out of Bastoni and Di Lorenzo, we’ll give it some thought. We’ll have a look at them in our final training session, they are both great lads. We need to understand who is doing better physically, so this evening will be important. Belotti? If he’s struggling, we won’t risk him, and that applies to the others too. It’s clear that we’re short on numbers in attack. Belotti has trained and done well. If he’s unavailable, we’ll assess whether to field an attacker with his characteristics or an attacker with different characteristics, as was the case when Bernardeschi played as the main striker two years ago in Poland.”

Italy are looking for a win that would see them go top of their group ahead of their last match against Bosnia on Wednesday. The upcoming two matches will also be decisive as far as World Cup qualifying is concerned: the top ten European national teams will be seeded for the draw on 7 December. Evani continued: “This isn’t just any other game because, aside from the importance of the Nations League and the calibre of the opposition, we don’t want to lose points in the FIFA ranking.

We’ll be up against a strong Poland side and we’ll be without a number of players, but we’ll give as good as we’ve got out on the pitch. In the past few years, Poland have shown that they’re an up-and-coming team in European football. Lewandowski is the best striker in Europe and they have other important players, like Zielinski for example. In terms of how we’ve played and the results we’ve achieved, we’ve always had the upper hand over them. We hope that it’ll be the same this time around.”

Mancini also won’t be in the dugout tomorrow: “You can imagine how Mancini is feeling: he wants to be with the team. Even if he’s not with us physically, he’s still helping us to manage the team. Mancini has always conveyed two clear messages: play good football and dominate the pitch. We hope to do both these things tomorrow. While it’s true that picking up a result is the most important thing, we don’t like winning without deserving to do so. We want to come out on top and be the superior side in the process, including against Poland.”

Squad list

Portieri: Alessio Cragno (Cagliari), Gianluigi Donnarumma (Milan), Alex Meret (Napoli), Salvatore Sirigu (Torino);
Difensori: Francesco Acerbi (Lazio), Alessandro Bastoni (Inter), Cristiano Biraghi (Fiorentina)**, Davide Calabria (Milan), Danilo D’Ambrosio (Inter), Giovanni Di Lorenzo (Napoli), Emerson Palmieri Dos Santos (Chelsea), Gian Marco Ferrari (Sassuolo), Alessandro Florenzi (Paris Saint-Germain), Luca Pellegrini (Genoa), Alessio Romagnoli (Milan);
Centrocampisti: Nicolò Barella (Inter), Gaetano Castrovilli (Fiorentina)**, Frello Jorge Luiz Jorginho (Chelsea), Manuel Locatelli (Sassuolo), Matteo Pessina (Atalanta), Roberto Soriano (Bologna), Sandro Tonali (Milan);
Attaccanti: Andrea Belotti (Torino), Domenico Berardi (Sassuolo), Federico Bernardeschi (Juventus), Federico Chiesa (Juventus)*, Stephan El Shaarawy (Shanghai Shenua), Ciro Immobile (Lazio)**, Lorenzo Insigne (Napoli), Kevin Lasagna (Udinese), Stefano Okaka Chuka (Udinese), Riccardo Orsolini (Bologna).

* Time of arrival TBC
** will only join up with the squad after receiving permission from the relevant health authorities