Italy looking for new start against Estonia September 02, 2010
It will be a new-look Italy that takes to the field in Tallinn on Friday for their opening Euro 2012 qualification match against Estonia.
There are likely to be only three names who also appeared on the Italian team-sheet for their last competitive match, a 3-2 defeat against Slovakia at the World Cup in South Africa.
Coach Cesare Prandelli already rang the changes for last month's friendly against Ivory Coast, a 1-0 defeat in London, and given the squad he picked for his first two competitive appointments -- against Estonia and then at home to the Faroe Islands on Tuesday -- he has showed he has no intention of turning back to the old guard.
Only Giorgio Chiellini, Daniele De Rossi and Simone Pepe, who started against Slovakia in June, are likely to be picked from the start against Estonia.
Andrea Pirlo, who only came on as a substitute against Slovakia as he'd been out injured prior to that game, will start in Tallinn and wear the captain's armband.
But otherwise it will be a younger, fresher and considerably less experienced Italy in Estonia.
Of the eight defenders Prandelli picked in his squad, only Chiellini has more than three caps and half of them are awaiting their debut.
Up front it is a similar situation with Prandelli having handed debuts to Amauri and Mario Balotelli against Ivory Coast.
Both are injured and hence miss the Estonia clash but Prandelli has already revealed he will likely start with Giampaolo Pazzini as his targetman, the Sampdoria striker having only nine caps, many as a sub, to his name.
In goal with Gianluigi Buffon and his understudy Federico Marchetti injured, Prandelli's three keepers have one cap between them, and that because the coach picked Salvatore Sirigu against the Africans.
It is only in midfield that there is any great experience with Pirlo and De Rossi boasting 125 caps between them.
And their roles will be incresingly important in the coming campaign as they try to lead their team-mates to the promised land.
What Prandelli has decided to do is concentrate on quality rather than experience and Pirlo admits the country has to start almost from scratch.
"We need to start playing football, South Africa 2010 proved that you need quality to win," he said.
"Keeping the ball on the ground, interchanging, we'll also learn to do this. The problem with Italian football is that we all have less quality: players, fans, stadiums, we need to get that back."
Prandelli has decided that his best bet to do exactly that is to bring in young, talented players and develop them into international stars.
But with qualification for Euro 2012 at stake, he insists that this isn't a case of trying out potential.
"We have new players who I hope will have a future (with Italy)," he said. "(But) we're playing for points so we won't be experimenting.
"We're at the beginning of a cycle and we want to win points right away.
"But our idea is to look to play well to get the result. We'll start by trying to find the right tactical balance, order and most of all get results."
Both Prandelli and Pirlo agree that Estonia will be no pushovers, despite their lowly 94th position in the FIFA world rankings.
Pirlo pointed to the fact that this team was only beaten 1-0 by Brazil earlier this year.
Even so, anything less than a win would be a disaster for Italy, not least for their already shattered morale which needs a quick fix following the World Cup.
A former coach of Iraq, Stange has a number of selection quandaries to contend with and must choose between long-term first-choice goalkeeper Yury Zhevnov, who is short of playing time at Zenit Saint Petersburg, and in-form Anton Amelchenko of Russian side FC Rostov.
The defence is likely to be an all BATE Borisov affair, with Igor Shitov, Sergei Sosnovski, Alexander Yurevich and Maksim Bordachev set to start, but there are concerns over the match fitness of key attacking midfielder Alexander Hleb, who joined Birmingham City on loan from Barcelona on Tuesday.
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