Nicolò Zaniolo Leaves Italy Camp Again — His Two-Year Wait Goes On

The comeback lasted one training session. Nicolò Zaniolo trained with Italy at Coverciano on Monday, worked among the three options Roberto Mancini was testing on the right flank, and by Tuesday he had left the camp for personal reasons. No replacement has been called up. France arrive at San Siro on Thursday, and the flank Zaniolo was supposed to contest is now an open audition between the two men who shared that drill with him: Napoli's Antonio Vergara and Como's Mattia Liberali, a first-time call-up who turned 19 this year. The whole break runs through the Serie A front.

This was meant to be the end of a two-year wait. Zaniolo, 27, has not played for Italy since the friendly win over Ecuador in March 2024, back when he was an Aston Villa player. He rebuilt himself at Udinese — six goals and five assists last season, a contract extension to 2029 — then came back from injury on October 25 and scored in his first three games back. The loudest of them came on October 31 at the Bluenergy Stadium, against Roma, the club where he made his name: jeered at every touch, he bundled in a rebound five minutes after half-time and did not celebrate. Mancini noticed. He has now named Zaniolo in both of his squads since returning as head coach, and Zaniolo has withdrawn from both — injured in September, personal reasons now.

On Monday, the coach said the quiet part out loud. Zaniolo "can play everywhere with his qualities — attacking midfielder, winger or striker," Mancini told his press conference, before adding that he expects him to "start becoming decisive, because time passes by. He used to be a kid, and now he should be a player who makes a difference with the national team." Mancini is the coach who first called Zaniolo up in 2019, before the player had even made his Serie A debut. A day after that challenge was issued in public, the camp lost the player it was aimed at — in the week Italy play their two biggest games of the autumn.

Liberali's week could hardly run the other way. The Como forward called this "the best week of my life" at Coverciano on Tuesday, sitting beside Milan's Alphadjo Cisse — the two played together at Catanzaro, and both are in a senior Italy camp for the first time. Liberali left Milan for Como last summer and says Cesc Fàbregas congratulated him on the call-up and has backed him from the first day. "Leaving Milan was not easy, but I have no regrets," he said. "You have to make decisions with confidence and you should not look back." On Monday he was the teenager in a three-man flank rotation. By Tuesday he was one of two men left in it.

Cisse's story is the camp's other headline, and it explains what Mancini is doing with this squad. The Milan forward, 20, missed the entire second half of last season with a serious muscle injury; this season he has eight goals in all competitions, five of them in the league, the latest against Genoa on Sunday, and Milan are already talking about a new deal to hold off Premier League interest. At Coverciano he named Mario Balotelli as his reference point in an Italy shirt, said he likes pressure, and delivered the line his club expects: "For Milan, winning is the priority, the Scudetto like any other competition. At Milan you have to win everything." La Gazzetta dello Sport reports Mancini is considering pairing him with Inter's Francesco Pio Esposito, 21, up front against France. Behind them, the coach has even brought two school-age midfielders in just to look at them — Como's Riccardo Cassano, born in 2009, and Parma's Simone Lontani, born in 2008 — before they leave for youth-team duty. This is a camp being rebuilt in public.

What is actually at stake on Thursday is not sentimental. Italy sit second in their Nations League group on seven points, three behind France and one ahead of Belgium, with the top two going to the quarter-finals. A place in the top three — and a seeded spot in December's European qualifying draw in Belfast — is already safe, but Italy have lost their last three matches in Milan, including a 4-1 defeat to Norway at this stadium a year ago that closed a failed World Cup qualifying campaign. Some 57,000 tickets have been issued for Thursday. After France comes Belgium in Brussels on Sunday. The Serie A season pauses for all of it — the league's whole autumn, its goals and its surprises, funnels into these two games. The last match Zaniolo played for his club, Friday's 2-1 defeat at Venezia, is in the Game Center. The next one he was supposed to play in, he has already left.