On June 16th, Italy will play their first game of the UEFA U-21 Championship 2009 vs. Serbia. The Azzurrini find themselves in a group with Belarus, Serbia, and hosts Sweden. Italy have always been successful at this level however they have not won the U-21 Championship since 2004. Pierluigi Casiraghi has been unsuccessful with the Azzurrini so far since taking over from Claudio Gentile in 2006 and this is arguably his last chance.

Often we see a young player explode onto the calcio scene and everyone turns heads and says "Where did this kid come from?". Well, now is your chance to gain some knowledge about some promising Italian young players and maybe in a year or two when one of these players starts to do some good things on the pitch you'll know who they are.

After the 0-0 draw with Serbia in the opening match, the game against hosts Sweden was very important, as a loss or a draw would've put Italy's chances of getting out of the group in lots of trouble. Fortunately, the Azzurrini stood up to the task, winning 2-1 and putting them in a strong position to advance to the semi-final.

After this summer's UEFA U-21 Championship, the current cycle will end and a new cycle (2009-2011) will start, which will result in a new Azzurrini team being put together because the current players will be too old to be eligible. Therefore in preparation for the qualifiers in September, Casiraghi is using next week's friendly vs.

Well, it's that time of the summer again. I'm off to the old country tomorrow, so the blog will be inactive for a couple of weeks. However I will be back right before the start of the Serie A season so I'll be able to maybe get a mega-preview up like last season and we'll wrap up the important news that happened while I was gone.

The Italy U-21 side went into their last group game with 4 points and only needed a draw to advance to the semi-final, but a win would assure first place in the group. Italy were without Mario Balotelli, who was serving his one-match ban and there was watching from the stands. Casiraghi "officially" put out a 4-3-3 with Ignazio Abate in Balotelli's place, but it was in fact a 4-4-2 with De Ceglie and Abate on the flanks and Sebastian Giovinco supporting Robert Acquafresca.

The new Italy U-21 side (who lost their first friendly August 12 vs. Russia 3-2) will now start qualifying for the 2011 UEFA U-21 European Championship to be held in Denmark. The Azzurrini will play two games, one on September 4th away to Wales in Swansea, and the other on September 8th at home vs.

The Italy U-21's continued their very disappointing qualifying campaign with another loss, this time away to Hungary. The Azzurrini needed a win to get back on track, but now qualification is getting more and more difficult. The Hungarians won 2-0, with goals coming from Nemeth and Koman (both players played on the Hungarian side that knocked the Italy U-20's out of the U-20 World Cup last month).

Italy is through to the quarter-finals of the FIFA Under-20 World Cup 2009 following their 3-1 win over ten-man Spain at Cairo's Al Salam Stadium. Andrea Mazzarani scored one goal and assisted on another for the Azzurrini. Goalkeeper Vincenzo Fiorillo saved a late penalty that would have made the game 3-2 following a late Spanish onslaught.

After Italy's elimination for the U-21 Championship last Friday, Gigi Casiraghi was unsure about his future. He said that he would let the night pass and consider his options. The media were expecting that Casiraghi would decide to leave after 3 years at the helm and go on to newer pastures.