Italy's quest to retain the European Championship begins in just 18 days. The provisional 30-man squad was announced last week, and the first of two friendlies will put the defending champions up against Turkey and then Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Can Luciano Spalletti find success for the Azzurri in his first major tournament? After saving Italy's qualifying campaign, can he find success and take Italy all the way in Germany this summer?
Spalletti has been clear from day one in charge that there are two main factors behind his decision-making on which players will be selected for the national team, with the first and most important being that players will be picked on merit and performance rather than similar few players being selected for each international break or tournament and the second factor being a push to trusting the youth which has meant that the squad has seen a variety of changes since the squad that saw success at Euro 2020.
A most notable example of a key player missing in the midfield, Manuel Locatelli, who was standard under Mancini since his debut at Euro 2020 was a massive shock to fans, not being part of the Euro squad, as he was a regular under the previous tenure and most notably scored a brace in the group stages against Switzerland.
Since the 26-year-old moved to the Italian giants Juventus, he has played north of 3,000 minutes for the Bianconeri, starting regularly for them; unfortunately, he will not be adding to his 28 caps this summer.
However, regardless of the backlash that Spalletti has received for his choices, it has certainly worked so far, as he was able to turn around what was set to be a disappointing Euro qualification campaign despite the rocky nature of their final game against Ukraine he managed to ensure that qualification was secure for this summer's tournament, and surely this has helped build confidence in his ability as a coach not only after his successful season with Napoli but the turnaround in the success that the national team has found in comparison to the end of Mancini's tenure and help build good player-coach relationships.
Whilst anything could happen in theory, before the tournament begins, Italy will have a tough group to get out of and could be the tournament "Group Of Death", which includes two fellow European heavyweights in Croatia and the familiar foes from the Euro 2020 semi-final Spain as well as Albania.
Italy's first game of the tournament comes against Albania, and with all due respect, Italy should be the favourites, as will be the case with Spain and Croatia and be able to take all three points; following this is a Euro 2020 rematch with Spain, which should be one of the most anticipated games of the tournament between two countries that have played in their fair share of important games and this matchup could be the decider and determine how far either country gets in the tournament.
Italy's final game will come against Croatia, another heavyweight and like their fixture against Spain looks set to be another close encounter and will certainly provide the neutrals watching good games of football.
So far, Spalletti has only taken four games in charge of the Azzurri with two wins, a draw and a loss; whilst this is a positive set of stats, he has only just begun his time with the national team, so it may be too early to tell how he will take charge of the squad this summer.
However, if his track record of success is anything to go by he will be able to mould the team to his likeness and playing style and already has proven him successful in the tough task of turning round Italy's Euro qualification campaign earlier this year. Maybe Euro 2024 will enable Spalletti to showcase his skills on a higher scale and help Italy gain consecutive European glory.
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