Why Calò's numbers make his Italy omission hard to explain
Giacomo Calò's agent has accused Roberto Mancini of ignoring merit after the Frosinone playmaker was left out of Italy's November squad despite leading Serie A in chances created.
Vincenzo Pisacane, who represents Frosinone midfielder Giacomo Calò, has publicly criticised Roberto Mancini for omitting his client from Italy's squad for the Nations League fixtures against France and Belgium, warning the decision risks becoming, in his words, "the death of meritocracy", Football Italia reports.
Mancini named a 31-man squad on Thursday, including ten midfielders and first call-ups for Como's Riccardo Cassano and Parma's Simone Lontani. Calò, 29, was not among them, despite a season that has made him one of Serie A's standout performers.
Pisacane's complaint centres on a specific claim: no player in Serie A has created more chances than Calò this season. Chance creation, as a metric, counts the passes, crosses and set-piece deliveries that directly lead to a teammate's shot. It measures a player's involvement in generating attempts on goal, not the quality of those chances or whether they are converted.
The case for inclusion rests on output, not reputation
Calò has scored five league goals this season, including goals in four consecutive matches, operating as a regista — a deep-lying playmaker tasked with dictating tempo from in front of the back line rather than arriving late into the box. That he leads the division in chances created while also contributing goals from deep suggests a player comfortable both building attacks and finishing them, a rarer combination than pure creative output alone.
"If he were 34 or 35, I could have understood it, but he's 29. On numbers, he's currently the best midfielder in Italy," Pisacane told TuttoMercatoWeb. He added that Mancini's selected midfielders are all strong players, but argued none currently match Calò's statistical output.
The broader tactical question is what a regista is being judged against. A player in that role succeeds by resisting pressure in tight areas and progressing the ball into zones where chances can be created — qualities that show up in creation numbers but are harder to isolate from raw statistics than, say, goals or assists. Pisacane's argument leans entirely on the latter, treating output as self-evidently decisive, which is precisely where national team selection and statistical merit can diverge: a coach may weigh physical profile, tactical fit within a specific system, or performances against stronger opposition more heavily than raw volume.
Frosinone's rise has been built around him
Frosinone were promoted last season largely on the back of Calò's contribution — 10 goals and 15 assists — and sit sixth in Serie A this term, above both Juventus and Napoli. That table position matters to the context of Pisacane's complaint: Calò is not merely posting good individual numbers in isolation, he is doing so while his side consistently builds attacks through him in matches that carry real stakes.
Much of his career before this season was spent in Serie B and Serie C, meaning this is his first campaign at the top level. Pisacane credited coach Massimiliano Alvini, who worked with Calò previously at Cosenza and pushed for his signing at Frosinone, for creating the platform on which that transition has worked. "His relationship with Alvini is wonderful," he said, adding that sporting director Castagnini had also pursued the signing and that Calò was "fully repaying that trust".
Pisacane went further, suggesting Alvini's own managerial standing has lagged behind what Frosinone's performances this season deserve: "For me, Alvini has achieved far too little compared to what he could have."
The market circled before Mancini did
Calò's rise this season had already attracted interest beyond the national team conversation. Pisacane revealed that Sampdoria made a strong approach for the midfielder in the summer, an approach both player and club rejected. He said several other Serie A clubs that had previously turned down the chance to sign Calò have since admitted their mistake, though he stressed no concrete transfer talk is underway and that the player's focus remains entirely on Frosinone.
That context sharpens the selection debate rather than settling it. A player attracting retrospective regret from clubs that passed on him, while leading his league in a measurable creative category, is not an obviously marginal case for international recognition — which is the core of Pisacane's frustration.
Mancini's squad will face France at San Siro on 12 November before travelling to Brussels to play Belgium three days later. Pisacane said Calò remains "calm" and focused on Frosinone's next fixture against Cagliari, with the hope that continued form forces a recall.