Davide Calabria was snubbed once again as Roberto Mancini named his Italy squad on Friday evening. It’s a decision that has sparked a debate regarding the manager’s selections, with a few more questionable picks.
The Milan captain has been left out of the Italy squad before and it’s well known that Mancini doesn’t like the player that much. However, amid the injury of Alessandro Florenzi, he was expected to get a call-up this time out.
Mancini has always referred to the fact that he cannot include more than two right-backs (Florenzi and Di Lorenzo), but this decision is harder to explain. Something that Andrea Longoni brought up in his latest editorial for MilanNews.
“Finally, we learned with great amazement the Italy call-ups: happy for Pobega but also speechless for Calabria. How can you prefer Mazzocchi? Davide is the captain of the Italian champions, he has won and has experience in Europe too. With all due respect to Mazzocchi, even just including him is embarrassing. Excluding Calabria as well is even worse,” he wrote.
Calabria has a perfect opportunity to prove Mancini this evening as he will be up against Kvischa Kvaratskhelia. The Napoli winger has been in tremendous form lately and it won’t be an easy task for the Milan captain.
