(Reuters) – Midfielders Nicolo Zaniolo and Manuel Locatelli were among the surprise omissions when defending champions Italy named their 30-man preliminary squad on Thursday for the European Championship.
Locatelli’s Juventus team mate Nicolo Fagioli returned to the squad while forward Domenico Berardi and striker Cirro Immobile were also left out by Luciano Spalletti.
The twice champions play home friendlies against Turkey and Bosnia and Herzegovina at next month before travelling to Germany where they begin their Group B campaign against Albania on June 15 in Dortmund.
Croatia and three-times champions Spain are the other teams in the group.
Italy’s preliminary squad:
Goalkeepers: Gianluigi Donnarumma (Paris Saint Germain), Alex Meret (Napoli), Ivan Provedel (Lazio), Guglielmo Vicario (Tottenham Hotspur)
Defenders: Francesco Acerbi (Inter Milan), Alessandro Bastoni (Inter), Raoul Bellanova (Torino), Alessandro Buongiorno (Torino), Riccardo Calafiori (Bologna), Andrea Cambiaso (Juventus), Matteo Darmian (Inter), Giovanni Di Lorenzo (Napoli), Federico Dimarco (Inter), Gianluca Mancini (Roma), Giorgio Scalvini (Atalanta)
Midfielders: Nicolo Barella (Inter), Bryan Cristante (Roma), Nicolo Fagioli (Juventus), Michael Folorunsho (Hellas Verona), Davide Frattesi (Inter), Jorginho (Arsenal), Lorenzo Pellegrini (Roma), Samuele Ricci (Torino)
Forwards: Federico Chiesa (Juventus), Stephan El Shaarawy (Roma), Riccardo Orsolini (Bologna), Giacomo Raspadori (Napoli), Mateo Retegui (Genoa), Gianluca Scamacca (Atalanta), Mattia Zaccagni (Lazio)
(Reporting by Chiranjit Ojha in Bengaluru, editing by Ed Osmond)
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