Coppa Italia matches could be moved to aid Italy World Cup hopes

Italian sports minister Andrea Abodi is confident an agreement will be reached to grant Gennaro Gattuso a short training camp in early February, but stresses that Serie A fixtures will not be shifted to make it happen.

Gattuso is pushing for a brief gathering before the March play-offs, yet moving league matches is essentially unworkable under the current calendar.

The last two seasons have already shown how difficult, bordering on impossible, it is to rearrange even a single fixture, let alone an entire round.

Despite FIGC-Lega cooperation, the only realistic window appears to be the Coppa Italia quarter-finals. Those ties are set for February 4 and 11, and the idea would be to reshuffle them once the bracket becomes clearer, according to reports from TuttoMercatoWeb.

The principle is simple: matches involving fewer Italy internationals could be moved to the week of the training camp, while the ties with the highest concentration of Azzurri players would be placed outside it.

Because the draw includes widely different profiles: for example an Udinese-Genoa quarter would barely impact Gattuso, whereas something like Inter-Roma would pull several first-team regulars, therefore organisers will wait for the actual matchups before locking in the dates.

Unless Italian sides suffer a catastrophic elimination wave in Europe, something that would unintentionally ease scheduling, clarity will come only after the Round of 16 is settled. For now, nothing is decided, but the intention is clear: protect Gattuso’s camp without touching Serie A.