The 20 Italy youngsters with the most potential

Martin Macdonald

14 Apr 2022 13:11 BST
3 min read

Sandro Tonali, AC Milan, 2021-22 — © ProShots

The Italy national team is currently at a low ebb following their failure to qualify for the 2022 World Cup.

In a recent World Cup playoff, Italy suffered a shock defeat versus North Macedonia to knock them out of contention to qualify.

Italy won the 2020 European Championships, but this is now the second successive World Cup in which they have failed to qualify.

Once the dust settles, however, Italy can take some heart from the fact that they have a number of young players who could emerge as superstars within the next few years.

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Sandro Tonali is the Italian player at the age of 21 or younger with the most potential according to SciSports.

The Milan midfielder is undoubtedly the highest profile name on our list, too, as he is already a key player at San Siro, having joined the club from Brescia.

He is already a full member of the Italy senior side and has eight caps for the Azzurri.

In second is Cagliari defender Andrea Carboni. A product of the Cagliari academy, he is now one of the first-choice defenders at the club, having started 22 games in 2021/22.

Juventus' midfield has received criticism for their collective performances this season, but next campaign we may finally see Nicolo Rovella get his chance following another impressive campaign on loan at Genoa.

Giorgio Scalvini of Atalanta and Samuele Ricci of Empoli round out the top five.

Player	Parent Club	Potential SciSports Skill
1. Sandro Tonali	Milan	122.9
2. Andrea Carboni	Cagliari	105.2
3. Nicolo Rovella	Juventus	104.8
4. Giorgio Scalvini	Atalanta	104.3
5. Samuele Ricci	Empoli	100.9
6. Eddie Salcedo	Inter	98.3
7. Mattia Viti	Empoli	98.1
8. Destiny Udogie	Verona	96.1
9. Fabiano Parisi	Empoli	95.8
10. Sebastiano Esposito	Inter	94.4
11. Samuele di Benedetto	Stuttgart	94.1
12. Caleb Okoli	Atalanta	93.2
13. Emanuel Vignato	Bologna	92.7
14. Federico Crescenti	Liefering	92.6
15. Wilfried Gnoto	FC Zurich	90.2
16. Cher Ndour	Benfica	89.7
17. Tommaso Milanese	Roma	89.1
18. Matteo Cardinali	Latina	89.0
19. Salvatore Esposito	SPAL	87.9
20. Fabio Chiarodia	Werder Bremen	87.7

How is the SciSkill ranking calculated?

SciSports explains how our development ratings are gathered:

“Among others, a positive development could be boosted by more playing time, playing time on a higher level or better performances on the pitch.

“A negative development could be due to the player being active on a lower level than he used to play, bad performances or the fact that he does not play that often as he used to do.

“A SciSkill Development of 0.0 could indicate that a player is performing exactly like our algorithm expects him to do. Another reason could be inactivity (e.g. a long-term injury or suspension).”