Italy will be looking to extend their impressive unbeaten run when they take on Moldova in an international friendly at the Stadio Artemio Franchi on Wednesday evening.
The Azzurri have gone 16 matches without defeat in a run spanning two years, while opponents Moldova enter this match winless in nine.
Match preview
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Italy returned to action last month after a 10-month break with a draw against Bosnia-Herzegovina and win over the Netherlands to begin their UEFA Nations League Group A1 campaign.
If the stalemate with Bosnia was considered a bit of a disappointment, the win in Amsterdam three days later more than made up for it.
Nicolo Barella's first-half header proved enough for Roberto Mancini's men, who have now won 12 of their last 13 matches - the home draw with Bosnia being the exception.
Jorginho orchestrated the game at the Johan Cruyff Arena, while Manuel Locatelli enjoyed an impressive debut in a team performance Mancini would have been delighted with.
All eyes are now on the Nations League double-header against Poland and Netherlands over the coming week, with this friendly against Moldova giving Mancini a chance to experiment.
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Engin Firat's side kicked off their Nations League campaign with a 1-1 draw against Kosovo and 1-0 loss to Slovenia, leaving them bottom of Group C3 and facing relegation.
The draw with Kosovo is one of only two occasions that Moldova have avoided defeat in their last 14 matches, the other being a 1-0 win over Andorra in June 2019.
This will therefore be an almighty challenge for the visitors, and one that is perhaps not top of their priority list ahead of competitive games with Greece and Slovenia.
Moldova have lost all four of their previous meetings with Italy, most recently going down 2-1 in a World Cup 2006 qualifying fixture - Christian Vieri among the scorers that day.
Italy form (all competitions): WWWWDW
Moldova form (all competitions): LLLLDL
Team News
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Paris Saint-Germain midfielder Marco Verratti is back in Italy's squad after recovering from injury.
Three of the Napoli players who were selected for the last set of fixtures - Lorenzo Insigne, Alex Meret and Giovanni Di Lorenzo - are absent because of coronavirus protocols.
The Juventus contingent in the squad may also have to withdraw for similar reasons.
Mancini has named an extended 34-man group, meaning a chance for the likes of Angelo Ogbonna, Manuel Lazzari and Domenico Berardi to win some rare caps.
A number of changes are expected on the back of the win over the Netherlands, with new PSG right-back Alessandro Florenzi among those expected to return.
With fewer options to choose from, Moldova could pick a near identical XI to that one that started against Slovenia for this game in Florence.
Italy possible starting lineup:
Donnarumma; Florenzi, Ogbonna, Acerbi, Biraghi; Jorginho, Verratti; Pellegrini, Sensi, Barella; Immobile
Moldova possible starting lineup:
Koselev; Platica, Mudrac, Posmac, Armas; Reabciuk; Rata, Carp, Ionita; Damascan, Caimacov
We say: Italy 4-0 Moldova
Italy looked very good in last month's win over the Netherlands and have now won 12 of their last 13 matches.
Moldova, by comparison, have avoided defeat twice in 13 outings, so we can only see a comfortable home victory on Wednesday.
Top betting tip
Our expert tipster partners at Sporita.com are predicting under 3.5 goals in this match. Click here to find out what else they are predicting for this game and for more of their tried-and-tested football tips.Under 3.5:data
Daniel Lewis
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Italy win with a probability of 76.86%. A draw had a probability of 15.9% and a win for Moldova had a probability of 7.26%.
The most likely scoreline for a Italy win was 2-0 with a probability of 15.35%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (13.42%) and 3-0 (11.71%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (7.36%), while for a Moldova win it was 0-1 (3.22%). The actual scoreline of 6-0 was predicted with a 1.2% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Italy would win this match.
