Roberto Mancini Was Forced to Rotate His Team

DBasia.news – Italy under Roberto Mancini once again got a disappointing result. After playing draw with a 1-1 score against Poland in the first match of UEFA Nations League last week, and now on Monday, Italy got defeated by Portugal with a 0-1 score.

The only goal from Portugal was scored by the player from AC Milan last season, Andre Silva. Mancini just sent 10 players from the team starter in the match against Poland. Practically, it was just Jorginho who stayed as the main player.

Moreover, some players on the pitch have minimum playing time at the international level. They are Simone Zaza, Manuel Lazzari, Bryan Cristante, and Mattia Caldara.

The decision was a boomerang for Italy resulted in the failure to gain three points. But after the match, Mancini said that he was forced to rotate the team because, in the match like this, the young players have the chance to progress.

“We have to let them (the young players) grow, there is nothing else to it. When a player is young and he is just starting out at this level, he is going to have some problems, we knew that was going to happen.”

“When our fitness levels get better, that will definitely be positive, but the main issue we need to resolve is not scoring goals.

Statistically, Italy are inferior to Portugal. From the goal shoots, Gli Azzurri just scored twice while Portugal got six times.

However, Mancini defended his squad. He thought the young players need to be on the pitch to show the great performance.

“Unfortunately, we make errors and should try to reduce them, but the lads gave all they had. We need to score goals in order to win, so we must find new solutions and do more up there,” Mancini revealed.