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Azerbaijan undefeated in the last 4 official games

Italy have no been doing brilliantly in qualifying games but they have a chance to secure a spot at 2016 Euro today

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Azerbaijan's national team made massive progress since he Croatian coach Robert Prosinecki took over. They managed to play a draw in Norway and one home against Croatia. But Azerbaijan then went to face Malta away and recorded their first slip (a 2-2 draw). 

Prosinecki took over at Azerbaijan when they already had to chance of qualifying for Euro. He therefore started focusing on on giving a chance to younger players in order to build a team for the future. He surprised everyone by not inviting defenders Urfan Abbasov and Elnur Allahveriyev, and forwards Rauf Aliyev, Vuqar Nadirov and Vagif Javadov to join the team for this game. We already talked about midfielder Javad Huseynov and his murder charges. He is not back on the team and midfielder Tagiyev is the only one who won't be at Prosinecki's list with an injury today.

- There is no point even talking about Italy. They are four time world champions and the leading team in our group. We will not lack motivation, especially because of our undefeated run. We have been doing a good job in practice sessions over the past few days and I personally am optimistic. We proved in the Croatia game that we can deal with top European teams and I'm sure we further up our game - Prosinecki said.

Italy are top table ahead of he final two qualifiers and will confirm their Euro qualification either today home or against Norway in Rome in three days. They have not been doing brilliantly in this qualifying cycle but but Italy will most likely finish in one of the top two spots since they are currently 4 points ahead of Croatia and 2 points ahead of Norway. Italy opened the qualifiers with a win in Norway, which was, interestingly, their only win by two goals in all of qualifiers. The Italians struggled against Croatia, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan and even Malta. Center back Chiellini scored three goals in the previous Azerbaijan match, one of which was an own goal.

Conte does not expect an easy task for his team in Azerbaijan:

- Azerbaijan have proven to be a good team recently. This is truly a key game for us because we know a win would see us qualify for Euro. That is a goal we worked hard for. I think we can be completely focused in Azerbaijan and bring back three points with the right level of focus.

Conte has 27 players on his list for the Azerbaijan and Norway games due to all the injury-struggles. Napoli's offense player Insigne has been Italy's top player lately but he got injured in the derby match against Milan, in which he scored 2 goals. Forwards Osvaldo and Berardi, defender De Silvestri, and midfielders Thiago Motta, Marchisio and Pirlo all struggle with inuries. Interestingly, Pirlo and Giovinco became the first MLS players to get an invite for the Italian national team. Out of all the injured players, only the well-experienced Pirlo could recover from his injury in time to play Norway. 

While Conte thought he will be able to count on Insigne and Berardi, it has been expected that Italy will play in a 4-3-3 formation. It is now expected that they will start in a 4-4-2 formation with Eder and Pelle as strikers. Pirlo's substitute in the midfield is always Verrati, while El Shaarawy, Candreva and Florenzi fight for winger positions.