Forty-two of Italy's best footballers were summoned to the national training centre at Coverciano last week, arriving in staggered groups to undergo a thorough physical exam designed to gauge their readiness for this summer's World Cup. Cesare Prandelli has stated the belief that his team will need athletes, more than technically gifted ball-players, to succeed in hot and humid conditions in Brazil.
Details of the tests were not released, the manager noting that he and his staff would need time to look over the results. But it was clear that this process would matter more for some players than for others. Prandelli acknowledged in an interview with the newspaper Libero on Tuesday that he already had 18 names in mind for his 23-man squad. "To complete [the group] I need to first see how those players are," he said. "And then I'll add some more."
Although he gave no names, many of the 18 were easy enough to divine; no shabby bleep test result could ever deny Gigi Buffon or Andrea Pirlo their place on the plane to Brazil. More fascinating was the question of which players might be battling it out for the remaining five open spots.
Ciro Immobile was surely prominent among them. With just one international cap so far, the Torino striker is too inexperienced to be considered a sure thing for Brazil. But as Serie A's leading scorer, he is also becoming increasingly hard to overlook.
On the day before he travelled to Coverciano, Immobile bagged his 19th league goal of the campaign. An important one it was too, pulling Torino level with Genoa in second-half injury time. Moments later, his team-mate Alessio Cerci struck the winner, sparking such bedlam at the Stadio Olimpico that the team's goalkeeping coach, Beppe Zinetti, wound up tearing an Achilles tendon.
Cerci's World Cup place is not thought to be in doubt. He has been effective in a central role for Torino this season, playing just behind Immobile in Giampiero Ventura's 3-5-1-1, but above all what he offers Prandelli is versatility. In a nation that rarely produces true wingers, he is one of few gifted forwards that is genuinely comfortable playing out wide.
Immobile is more one-dimensional, a penalty box striker whose greatest value is simply in scoring goals. He has compared his own style to that of Edinson Cavani, saying that he models himself after the Uruguayan (whom Italy will face in the World Cup group stages) but in truth his game is less well rounded than that of his idol, and he is not nearly so good at holding up the ball. But nor is Immobile the stationary target that his name might suggest. Famously, when the striker went on loan from Juventus – whose academy he joined as a teenager – to Pescara in 2011, his new manager was waiting with a quip. "With a surname like that," said Zdenek Zeman, "you can never be a centre-forward in my team."
It was not the first time that Immobile had heard such a line, and nor will it be the last. But it was the first time Pescara's fans had ever witnessed such a prolific player in their colours. Immobile raced to 28 goals in 37 games, breaking the team's single-season scoring record as they won Serie B. It was precisely the player's refusal to stay still – his endless darting runs inside the box – that allowed him to reach such a number.
Twenty-two years old at the time, Immobile was heralded as one of the coming talents of Italian football but initially failed to live up to such hype. Moving from Pescara to Genoa, he quickly found himself shunted out to the wings on a team that cycled through three managers in a single campaign. He scored just five times, leading many observers to conclude that his success at Pescara was a Zeman-inspired fluke. Immobile, to his credit, refused to make excuses. "Players often look for alibis – it's easy to give the blame to others," he told La Repubblica last summer. "I messed up, even if the atmosphere [in Genoa] was not ideal for me."
Few top-flight teams were prepared to take a chance on him after such a disappointing year, but Torino have been rewarded for doing so. They signed Immobile on a co-ownership deal from Juventus, and together with Cerci he has gone on to form one of the most potent strike partnerships in the league. Comparisons have been made with the 'Goal Twins' Ciccio Graziani and Paolo Pulici, who fired Torino to its most recent Scudetto in 1975-76.
This current squad has not quite replicated such highs, but they have put the club in the hunt for its first European berth for two decades. Ahead of Saturday's game away to Lazio, Torino found themselves joint-seventh, just three points away from the Europa League places. The Romans were one of two clubs sat level with them in the standings.
Cerci was unavailable due to suspension, but the presence of Immobile gave Torino hope. He had scored six goals in the previous four games, moving ahead of Carlos Tevez and into first place in the scoring charts.
He would extend that run in Rome, slicing through the middle of Lazio's defence before crashing a violent effort into the top corner of Etrit Berisha's net. His timing could not have been any more perfect. That goal, his 20th of the campaign, made the score 3-2 to Torino, who had previously trailed 1-0 and 2-1, in the final minute of regular time.
Here was yet another reminder to Prandelli of what Immobile could offer the national team. This had not been the striker's greatest performance, but once again he had delivered when his side needed him most. Goals win matches, and Immobile knows how to get them. Not that Torino did win on Sunday. Instead, four minutes into injury time, Lazio found an equaliser. Felipe Anderson's optimistic long shot was blocked by his own team-mate, Antonio Candreva, who took control of the loose ball and fired it past Daniele Padelli. The game ended 3-3.
It was a fittingly scrappy note on which to end a match of variable quality – one in which Lazio also had defender Diego Novaretti sent off with 10 minutes left to play. Candreva really should have been caught offside on the final goal, but the Torino wing-back Matteo Darmian was too lazy to keep up with his defensive team-mates as they stepped up to spring the trap.
Immobile would later defend his team-mate on Twitter, writing: "I keep hearing that the goal to make it 3-3 was Darmian's 'fault'. Let's stop that please, we talk only about the group here ... And if you want to talk about the team then underline the 30 games that Darmian has played without a single error."
The pair had spent a lot of time together in the previous week, travelling up together with Cerci to Coverciano for the national team get-together. Unlike the two forwards, Darmian has little hope of being included in Prandelli's squad. Not because of what happened on Saturday, but simply because he is not yet good enough.
There was a time, back in the late 1940s, when Torino would supply as many as 10 out of 11 players to the Italian national team. Those were the days of il Grande Torino – of hundred-goal seasons and four straight Serie A titles. The days before one of the greatest teams in Italian football history was cruelly wiped out in a plane crash at Superga.
This summer, the Granata would be content just to supply two out of 23 players to Prandelli's squad, while claiming a spot in continental competition for themselves. A few more goals from Immobile might take them a long way towards achieving both ends.
Talking points
Carlos Tevez was unable to respond to Immobile this weekend, since he never got off the bench during Juve's 1-0 win over Bologna. That means the Torino player is now two goals clear in the race to become Serie A's capocannioniere (a feat that looks all the more impressive when you consider that he has taken only one penalty all season … and missed it). But Luca Toni might yet have a say in this contest. The 36-year-old scored his 18th goal of the season on Saturday, as Verona won 2-1 away to Atalanta.
Not an impressive performance from Juventus at all, but you can insert your own cliché about great teams winning even when they play badly here. The only point that really matters is that the champions have 90 points after 34 games. Will they make it to 100?
Roma could easily have allowed their heads to drop after seeing Juventus take yet another stride towards the Scudetto. Instead Rudi Garcia's side pulled off an impressive 1-0 victory away to Fiorentina, securing second place and with it a guaranteed spot in the group stages of next year's Champions League. They celebrated that achievement with the enthusiasm it deserved
An important victory for Inter away to Parma, moving the Nerazzurri five points clear of Roberto Donadoni's team in fifth place. Although finishing sixth would still get them into the Europa League, it would also mean starting that competition in the third qualifying round – which begins in late July. That, in turn, could potentially have cost Inter their participation in the International Champions Cup (a pre-season tournament which isn't nearly as grand as it sounds, but which is a tidy little earner for the clubs involved) in the US. Erick Thohir has plenty to thank Samir Handanovic for, after the goalkeeper pulled off yet another penalty save.
That's five wins in a row for Milan, who beat Livorno 3-0 on Saturday and now sit level on points with sixth-placed Parma (albeit effectively still behind them due to head-to-head records). But tougher games lie ahead for the Rossoneri. Next up are Roma at the Stadio Olimpico, and after that a Derby della Madonnina back at San Siro.
Andrea Pirlo's autobiography has been getting plenty of attention since the English translation was released this month , and if you have not yet picked up a copy I would thoroughly recommend it . Among other gems, there is an entertaining anecdote in there about his obsession with learning how replicate Juninho's free-kicks, and how he finally found the secret while sitting on a toilet.
Results: Atalanta 1-2 Verona, Catania 2-1 Sampdoria, Chievo 0-1 Sassuolo, Fiorentina 0-1 Roma, Genoa 1-2 Cagliari, Juventus 1-0 Bologna, Lazio 3-3 Torino, Milan 3-0 Livorno, Parma 0-2 Inter, Udinese 1-1 Napoli
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