Italy leave out Chelsea’s Palestra, recall Mandragora after five years, trust Maldini

FLORENCE, ITALY - SEPTEMBER 05: Rolando Mandragora of Torino FC celebrates after scoring a goal during the Serie A match between ACF Fiorentina and Torino FC at Stadio Artemio Franchi on September 5, 2026 in Florence, Italy. (Photo by Gabriele Maltinti/Getty Images)

There were some doubts over Roberto Mancini’s first Italy squad, as Daniel Maldini is included despite his recent incident, Rolando Mandragora returns after five years, but Chelsea man Marco Palestra misses out.

The Azzurri will play four Nations League fixtures during this break for international duty, against Belgium on September 25, Turkiye on September 28, France on October 2 and then the Turkish side again on October 5.

The group is completed on November 12 with France and November 15 in Belgium.

Mancini called nine new faces, but there were a few other surprises and interesting decisions too.

Italy surprises, recalls and big decisions

It had been predicted that Palestra would miss out, considering he is yet to make his competitive debut for Chelsea after sustaining an injury in pre-season.

There were question marks however over whether Maldini would get the nod, considering the controversy over his car accident, where his licence was suspended for testing narrowly over the alcohol limit.

It had been reported, later confirmed to be inaccurately, that Maldini had failed a drugs test too, but all toxicology tests came back negative.

Cagliari are standing by him, insisting he will start the next Serie A match this weekend.

There are some returns to the Italy squad, because both Nicolò Fagioli and Nicolò Zaniolo had not been included since October 2024.

Fiorentina player Fagioli has seven senior caps for Italy, while Zaniolo was famously given his first call by Mancini before even making a single Serie A appearance.

He now has 19 caps, the most recent in March 2024 against Ecuador, but the last competitive appearance was in November 2023 with Ukraine.

More remarkably, new Torino midfielder Mandragora is featured for the first time since March 2021, a gap of over five years.

The 29-year-old earned his first and so far only senior Italy cap in June 2018, during a 3-1 friendly defeat to France.