Mancini regrets not listening to mother's advice to invite Balotelli

Italy manager Roberto Mancini's mother Marianna Puolo feels the Italy boss made a mistake when he didn't select Mario Balotelli in his squad for the nation's World Cup play-off clash with North Macedonia.

The Azzurri suffered a shock 1-0 defeat in Palermo on Thursday, with Aleksandar Trajkovski netting an injury-time winner, meaning Italy will miss out on their second successive World Cup.

Mancini opted to use Ciro Immobile as his lone striker, before introducing Joao Pedro late on, but his side could not make a breakthrough despite having 32 shots on goal.

Puolo thinks things could have been different if Balotelli had been picked.

'I would have called up Balotelli because he has incredible physical strength and in front of the goal nobody can stop him,' she told Radiouno, as quoted by Football Italia.

Balotelli has scored 12 goals for Turkish side Adana Demirspor this term, but he was overlooked by Mancini and has not played for his country since September 2018.

Puolo then went on to point out that Italy should have sealed their place at the World Cup before the play-offs. 

She highlighted how three consecutive penalty misses by Chelsea midfielder Jorginho last year - the latter two against 

She continued: 'Unfortunately, mistakes like Jorginho’s cost us. I don’t want to point my finger at him because he certainly didn’t do it on purpose, but if you miss three penalties…'

Puolo finished up her summary of Italy's devastating loss by questioning the role of goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma for Trajkovski's goal.

Donnarumma was beaten by a long-distance shot, having hardly touched the ball throughout the game, and Puolo believes he could have done better.

'Macedonia only had one shot, maybe Donnarumma could’ve saved it but it’s useless to talk about it now,' she said.