Hungary, England and Germany will be Italy’s opponents in Group 3 of the league phase of the 2022/23 UEFA Nations league, which is set to return for its third edition. This is what came out of this afternoon’s draw in Nyon, with the Azzurri in Pot 1 after finishing third in the tournament just gone.

Ahead of the match schedule being made official tomorrow morning, Roberto Mancini had the following to say: “It’s a great group: with England, Germany and Hungary there, it’ll certainly be an entertaining one.”

It’s a tough draw for Italy, even if the Head Coach was relaxed about it: “They’re just football matches; meeting teams as strong as this is part of the spectacle of football. We faced England in the European Championship final, and they’ll certainly be two intense fixtures. Germany against Italy is a classic showdown in the world of football and it’ll be my first time facing them since becoming Head Coach; I’m happy about this. Finally, the games against Hungary will pit two Italians against each other: their Head Coach, Marco Rossi, comes from Italy, and they did really well at the Euros.”

Mancini didn’t shy away from stating his objective: “Do we want to win? We’ll try to do so. We want to be involved in the Final Four, as we were this year. We’ll aim to win the tournament.”

The 55 competing teams were split into four leagues. The 16 teams in League A were then divided into four groups of four teams, with the top teams qualifying for the Final Four taking place in June 2023 and the bottom teams being relegated to League B. The group matches will be played between June and September 2022, with four of the six matchdays being played in June due to the Qatar 2022 World Cup taking place in the winter.

League A draw

Group 1: France, Denmark, Croatia, Austria

Group 2: Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Czech Republic

Group 3: ITALY, Germany, England, Hungary

Group 4: Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, Wales