Italy star Claudio Marchisio has claimed that the Italian team feels fully prepared for the match against England. This will be their first match in the World Cup 2014, but there have been concerns about the form of the national team in the last few weeks. They have failed to win any of the warmup friendly matches, while several injury concerns are threatening to hamper the preparations. During the former friendly matches, Italy manager Cesare Prandelli saw players like Ricardo Montolivo withdraw from national team action due to injuries.
Despite this, Marchisio says that Italy feel confident that Italy will be able to achieve a positive result in their first match of the tournament. This will be a tough World Cup for the Italians, who won the tournament in the 2006 edition, since they will be coming up against former world champions like Uruguay and England in the group stages. After the first match against England, they will be taking on Costa Rica followed by the final group match against Uruguay. Marchisio has claimed that the meetings with England have always been passionate affairs. He has accepted that the national team is not experienced as it once was, but the players are confident of a positive result.
“I think we’ll meet a different England to Euro 2012. It will be a very difficult match, but just as they have changed since the Euros, so have we. For many of us it was our first major tournament, so we now have more experience and have done important things over the last two years. There is a very positive air here, as we worked well at Coverciano and in Brazil. We were glad to be given permission to have our families by our sides, as we already did at Euro 2012,” said Marchisio