Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
In one of his last acts as Italy Manager Antonio Conte has named a 30 man training squad for this Summer’s European Championship. Previous to that there was already a 4 day training camp selection in place but that has now been supplemented by players of both Juventus and A.C. Milan who have joined up after the Coppa Italia Final which took place on Saturday
In terms of Premier League representation there are 3 players in the 30 man squad, Angelo Ogbonna and Matteo Darmian in Defence while Graziano Pelle will be hoping his is the final 23 for the short trip to France
The evergreen Gianluigi Buffon will be in the squad for his final ever major tournament can he bow out with a win and go one better than the 4-0 final defeat to Spain in 2012
Antonio Conte will have to leave 7 players behind and with quite a balanced training party you would imagine there will be at least two from each position being left behind (goalkeepers not included)
Italy don’t seem to have the stars of before but it is still a relatively talented squad, on this evidence a spot in the Semi Finals would be a good achievement but there’s no doubt Antonio Conte would love to end on a high before his move to Chelsea. Below is the provisional squad in full
Goalkeepers: Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus), Federico Marchetti (Lazio), Salvatore Sirigu (Paris Saint-Germain)
Defenders: Davide Astori (Fiorentina), Andrea Barzagli (Juventus), Leonardo Bonucci (Juventus), Giorgio Chiellini (Juventus), Angelo Ogbonna (West Ham), Daniele Rugani (Juventus), Matteo Darmian (Manchester United), Mattia De Sciglio (Milan), Davide Zappacosta (Torino)
Midfielders: Marco Benassi (Torino), Giacomo Bonaventura (Milan), Daniele De Rossi (Roma), Alessandro Florenzi (Roma), Emanuele Giaccherini (Bologna), Jorginho (Napoli), Riccardo Montolivo (Milan), Thiago Motta (Paris Saint-Germain), Marco Parolo (Lazio), Stefano Sturaro (Juventus), Antonio Candreva (Lazio)
Forwards: Eder (Inter), Ciro Immobile (Torino), Lorenzo Insigne (Napoli), Graziano Pellè (Southampton), Simone Zaza (Juventus), Federico Bernardeschi (Fiorentina), Stephan El Shaarawy (Roma)
