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Having confirmed their recovery following their failure to qualify for the World Cup, the national team will meet again at Coverciano on Sunday evening ahead of their final two Nations League group matches. Two wins during the extended September/October international window against Türkiye, followed by a comeback draw against France in Saint-Denis, have taken the Azzurri to second place in League A, Group 1, on seven points — three behind leaders France and one ahead of Belgium. And it is precisely the Bleus and the Red Devils who will face Italy in the matches scheduled for Thursday 12 November at the Giuseppe Meazza in Milan (57,000 tickets issued, with the final 3,000 tickets on sale) and Sunday 15 November at the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels.
Already guaranteed at least third place and therefore a seeded position in the draw for European qualifiers, which will take place in Belfast on 6 December, Italy are looking to collect more points to secure their place in League A (the two best third-placed teams avoid relegation without having to go through the play-offs). They also have the ambition of finishing in the top two in the group and booking their place in the quarter-finals.
While Roberto Mancini had opted for an expanded squad of 34 players for the first four matches, played over 11 days, this time the Head Coach has called up 31. Four youngsters have received their first call-up to the senior national team: Como midfielder Riccardo Cassano, born in 2009; Parma midfielder Simone Lontani, born in 2008; Milan forward Alphadjo Cisse, born in 2006; and Como forward Mattia Liberali, born in 2007.
As for Cassano and Lontani, Mancini has called them up to observe them closely and give them a valuable opportunity to showcase their talent. They will not remain with the senior squad for the entire camp, however, and will join the Under-18 and Under-19 national teams in the coming days. The former will compete at the World Cup, which begins in Qatar on 19 November, while the latter will take part in the second qualifying round for the European Championship, scheduled for 11–17 November in the Marche region.
THE AZZURRI'S INTERNATIONAL BREAK SCHEDULE
PREVIOUS MEETINGS WITH FRANCE AND BELGIUM. Italy have faced France 42 times, with a record of 19 wins, 12 defeats and 11 draws, including the 1-1 result in the match played at the Stade de France a month ago. Despite the 0-2 defeat suffered at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome on 25 September, the national team also hold a clear advantage in their head-to-head record against Belgium: 17 wins, five draws and five defeats.
THE NATIONAL TEAM IN MILAN AND BRUSSELS. On 15 May 1910, the national team’s first-ever match was played in Milan against France. The Azzurri won 6-2 at the Arena Civica, and ten years later, on 18 January 1920, they beat the Bleus 9-4, recording their biggest victory in any match played in the Lombard capital. Milan is the second city after Rome to have hosted the most national-team matches, with 64 games and a record of 39 wins, 19 draws and six defeats. It was also home to the Italian Football Federation between 1905 and 1911. Italy have played in four different stadiums in the city: the Arena Civica, the Velodromo Sempione (demolished in 1928), Campo Milan on Viale Lombardia and the San Siro Stadium, named after Giuseppe Meazza on 3 March 1980.
The national team will return to the Meazza a year after their 1-4 defeat to Norway in the final match of their World Cup qualifying group, and two years after their 1-3 loss to France in the Nations League. Italy have lost their last three matches in Milan, where the Azzurri had maintained an unbeaten record for almost a century — exactly 96 years — from the 1-2 defeat to Hungary in January 1925 to the 1-2 loss to Spain in October 2021.
Italy have played seven matches against Belgium in Brussels, with a record of four wins and three defeats. The most recent meeting was the Nations League match on 14 November 2024, when Sandro Tonali’s goal secured Italy’s qualification for the quarter-finals. In the other two matches played in the Belgian capital, the national team recorded a 2-0 victory over Romania at Euro 2000 and a 1-2 defeat to Mexico in a friendly on 3 June 2010.
THE 2026/27 NATIONS LEAGUE. Ahead of the Nations League reform, which from the 2028/29 season will adopt a format similar to that of the new club competitions — with each league consisting of three groups of six teams, and each national team playing six matches against five different opponents — the regulations for the fifth edition of the tournament have also changed. To bring the numbers of national teams into line with the new format, which will increase the number of teams in each league from 16 to 18, the promotion and relegation mechanisms have inevitably been revised.
Until last season, the bottom teams in the four League A groups were automatically relegated to League B, while all the third-placed teams played a relegation play-off against the second-placed teams in League B. In the 2026/27 Nations League, only the two lowest-ranked fourth-placed teams will be automatically relegated. The two best third-placed teams across the four groups will remain in League A, while the two lowest-ranked third-placed teams and the two best fourth-placed teams will play off against the second-placed teams from the four League B groups.
SQUAD LIST
Goalkeepers: Marco Carnesecchi (Atalanta), Gianluigi Donnarumma (Manchester City), Guglielmo Vicario (Juventus);
Defenders: Honest Ahanor (Crystal Palace), Alessandro Bastoni (Inter), Riccardo Calafiori (Arsenal), Federico Dimarco (Inter), Daniele Ghilardi (Roma), Michael Kayode (Brentford), Gianluca Mancini (Roma), Marco Palestra (Chelsea), Giorgio Scalvini (Atalanta);
Midfielders: Nicolò Barella (Inter), Riccardo Cassano (Como), Issa Doumbia (Sporting CP), Nicolò Fagioli (Fiorentina), Davide Frattesi (Lazio), Simone Lontani (Parma), Niccolò Pisilli (Roma), Samuele Ricci (Como), Alessandro Romano (Cagliari), Sandro Tonali (Tottenham);
Forwards: Nicolò Cambiaghi (Bologna), Alphadjo Cisse (Milan), Francesco Pio Esposito (Inter), Sebastiano Esposito (Sassuolo), Luca Koleosho (Paris FC), Mattia Liberali (Como), Gianluca Scamacca (Atalanta), Antonio Vergara (Napoli), Nicolò Zaniolo (Udinese).
UEFA NATIONS LEAGUE GROUP A1: FIXTURES, RESULTS AND STANDINGS
MATCHDAY 1 (25 SEPTEMBER)
Italy-Belgium 0-2
Türkiye-France 0-1
MATCHDAY 2 (28 SEPTEMBER)
Türkiye-Italy 1-4
Belgium-France 0-1
MATCHDAY 3 (2 OCTOBER)
France-Italy 1-1
Belgium-Türkiye 3-0
MATCHDAY 4 (5 OCTOBER)
Italy-Türkiye 3-1
France-Belgium 4-1
Standings: France 10 points, Italy 7, Belgium 6, Türkiye 0
MATCHDAY 5 (12 NOVEMBER)
18:00: Türkiye-Belgium – Gürsel Aksel Stadium, Izmir
20:45: Italy-France – Giuseppe Meazza Stadium, Milan
MATCHDAY 6 (15 NOVEMBER)
20:45: Belgium-Italy – King Baudouin Stadium, Brussels
20:45: France-Türkiye – Stade Matmut Atlantique, Bordeaux