Riccardo Calafiori, an Italy defender, is reportedly being pursued by Premier League rivals Arsenal and Manchester City following the 2024 Summer Olympics, according to Micah Richards.
As Italy, the defending champions, placed second in Group B and moved on to the knockout stages, Calafiori, 22, made an impression during the group stage.
The Italians will now focus on a last-16 match against Switzerland and a potential quarterfinal matchup with Gareth Southgate’s Three Lions after defeating England on penalties in the Euro 2020 final.
After an outstanding season at Bologna, which finished fifth in Serie A, Calafiori was included in Italy’s Euro team. However, he had only played for his country once, in a friendly at the beginning of the month.
Despite his inexperience at international level, the 22-year-old played every minute of Italy’s group campaign and looks well on his way to enjoying a long and fruitful career.
Calafiori has been “amazing” for Italy, according to former England defender Richards, and he believes Arsenal and Manchester City may be interested in him later in the summer.
On the podcast The Rest is Football, Richards stated, “Calafiori has been amazing.” “He is the subject of everyone’s conversation.” Every major club is connected to him.
‘He plays his football for Bologna, and I’ve heard Arsenal and Man City are interested.
‘He’s really good on the ball, can score goals, can defend. And when we’ve been doing the games, I’ve been concentrating on [Alessandro] Bastoni, but Calafiori has been equally impressive.’
Despite being the European Champions, Italy were not considered one of the favourites for the tournament in Germany and remain one of the outsiders ahead of the last-16 ties.
But ex-Premier League striker Chris Sutton expects Luciano Spalletti’s side to ‘find a way to win’ their last-16 clash with Switzerland and set up a meeting with England, providing the Three Lions do the job against Slovakia.
‘Switzerland ending up drawing with Germany in their final group game but they were ahead for a long time and it looked like they would top Group A,’ Sutton told BBC Sport.
Danny Murphy and I were talking about this game because he is co-commentating on it for BBC TV. Danny has a strong preference for Switzerland, but I never really agree with Danny, so I’m going with Italy.
In their last Group B game against Croatia, the holders managed to get the outcome they need.
To be honest, they had the better opportunities and didn’t deserve to lose even if they only managed to equalize in the 98th minute.
Despite the fact that it will be quite tight, I have a hunch Italy will prevail in this match by doing the same. Italy maybe 1-0.