In accordance to the UEFA-imposed May 28 deadline, Italian coach Roberto Donadoni has made his final roster selection for Euro 2008: the 23 players who will representing the Azzurri this Summer have been picked and as many expected, Fiorentina midfielder Riccardo Montolivo was the player discarded from the manager’s Pre-selection list.

“I was expecting it, I’m not too disappointed” said Montolivo. “The coach told me I had been excluded from the roster, and we’ll discuss the possibility of me staying among the group until Friday, and perhaps participating in the friendly vs. Belgium in Florence“. Donadoni himself however revealed, later in the day, that Montolivo would be leaving Coverciano. “The choice has been made yesterday evening. I gave [Montolivo] the choice of remaining with us, and he decided to leave tonight“.

It’s worth mentioning that Montolivo was, until the last minute, in serious contention with Quagliarella. It isn’t a coincidence that in the official team picture, both Montolivo and Quagliarella appear on the far ends of the second and bottom rows respectively (i.e. in easy “position” to be cut out). The same situation had taken place for Euro 2000 and Giuseppe Pancaro, who was then discarded at the last minute by then-coach Dino Zoff.

Also, many (myself included) had expected the Don to make his final choice between Montolivo and Aquilani (who was struggling with form & playing time in the last part of the season), but I guess Donadoni was reassured by the performances of the Roma player during practice, and reverted his final choice to Montolivo/Quagliarella (the Udinese striker also had a bleak end of the season, compared to his usual abilities).

In addition, the final shirt numbers have been submitted to UEFA. De Rossi has inherited Totti’s nº10, Del Piero will be keeping nº7, and Cassano wil take nº18 (formerly Pippo Inzaghi’s).

Here’s the full list with numbers:
.

Number	Goalkeepers:	Club:
Nº14	Marco Amelia	Livorno
Nº1	Gianluigi Buffon	Juventus
Nº17	Morgan De Sanctis	Sevilla
.
Defenders:
Nº6	Andrea Barzagli	Palermo
Nº5	Fabio Cannavaro	Real Madrid
Nº4	Giorgio Chiellini	Juventus
Nº3	Fabio Grosso	Lyon
Nº23	Marco Materazzi	Inter
Nº2	Christian Panucci	Roma
Nº19	Gianluca Zambrotta	Barcelona
.
Midfielders:
Nº13	Massimo Ambrosini	Milan
Nº22	Alberto Aquilani	Roma
Nº16	Mauro Camoranesi	Juventus
Nº10	Daniele De Rossi	Roma
Nº8	Gennaro Gattuso	Milan
Nº20	Simone Perrotta	Roma
Nº21	Andrea Pirlo	Milan
.
Forwards:
Nº12	Marco Borriello	Genoa
Nº18	Antonio Cassano	Sampdoria
Nº7	Alessandro Del Piero	Juventus
Nº11	Antonio Di Natale	Udinese
Nº15	Fabio Quagliarella	Udinese
Nº9	Luca Toni	Bayern Munich

Tags: Alberto Aquilani, Alessandro Del Piero, Andrea Barzagli, Andrea Pirlo, Antonio Cassano, Antonio Di Natale, Azzurri, Christian Panucci, Daniele De Rossi, Euro 2008, Fabio Cannavaro, Fabio Grosso, Fabio Quagliarella, Gennaro Gattuso, Gianluca Zambrotta, Gianluigi Buffon, Giorgio Chiellini, Luca Toni, Marco Amelia, Marco Borriello, Marco Materazzi, Massimo Ambrosini, Mauro Camoranesi, Morgan De Sanctis, Riccardo Montolivo, Roberto Donadoni, Roster, Simone Perrotta

Posted in Azzurri, Euro 2008 |

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