Luciano Spalletti confirms Giacomo Raspadori will start against Ecuador, but Mateo Retegui is the ‘perfect’ Italy centre-forward, while playing out from the back ‘has limits.’

The international friendly kicks off at the Red Bull Arena in New York on Sunday at 20.00 GMT.

It is the second United States test after Thursday’s 2-1 victory over Venezuela, which saw Genoa striker Retegui net both goals.

“Raspadori will start tomorrow, I said that I would change seven or eight players from one game to the next, and in this case it could well be nine changes,” Spalletti told Sky Sport Italia.

Lorenzo Lucca of Udinese was hoping to get his senior Italy debut, but picked up a flexor injury in training and will likely not even be on the bench.

“Retegui has shown he is a perfect fit for that role. We didn’t have him in recent matches due to injury, but he scored two great goals as well as working hard for the team, so he is perfect.”

There were some concerns in the 2-1 win over Venezuela, as Gianluigi Donnarumma saved a penalty in the opening minutes and it was just one of the situations where Italy struggled to play out from the back.

“We should always try to play out from the back, but that approach has limits, we mustn’t do it beyond reason, otherwise you can lose the ball to give away a penalty or concede goals.

“If the other team does well to press you and create problems, it is possible to go long for the centre-forward, especially if it’s someone like Retegui who is good at controlling it.”

These are warm-up matches for the Euro 2024 tournament in Germany next summer, where Italy are in a group with Spain, Croatia and Albania.

“We must reach a higher level and we need to do it quickly,” continued the coach.

“There have to be steps forward compared to what we are doing now. It is a process we must rush through, seeing as we have very little time to work together.”

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