Portugal vs Italy 11/09/18

11 September 2018

After a frustrating 1-1 draw with Poland at the Stadio Renato Dall’Ara in Bologna, Italy will travel to Lisbon where they are going to face off against Portugal at the Estádio da Luz in the second UEFA Nations League fixture.

A Seleçãodas Quinas played out a 1-1 draw with Croatia in a friendly encounter a few days ago, which was their first game after the World Cup elimination. Fernando Santos is well aware his players are far away from the form that led them to the 2016 European Championship trophy, as Portugal only achieved three wins out of ten matches they featured in this year.

For the first time in fifty years, Gli Azzurri failed to qualify for the World Cup final tournament, which forced Luigi Di Biagio to step away and leave his spot to Roberto Mancini. Although the former Inter Milan manager debuted with a 2-1 win over Saudi Arabia, La Nazionale continued to struggle, losing 3-1 to France before playing out two straight draws. However, Mancini is hopeful his side can walk away with all three points that would fire them to the top of Group A/3 for the time being, but there are no signs Italy can overcome the severe crisis they’ve got stuck in.

The home side will be severely weakened by the absence of Cristiano Ronaldo, while the visitors are expected to arrive at full strength, with one exception that relates to Marco Verratti, who is yet to return to full fitness.