Serie A does not need Italy’s validation to announce itself to the world.
While the Azzurri prepare for another summer of watching from the margins, the league they play in continues to attract, develop, and showcase some of the finest footballers on the planet.
That uncomfortable truth has been underlined once more by France.
According to RMC Sport, coach Didier Deschamps will name four Serie A players in his final squad for the 2026 World Cup – a tournament co-hosted by the USA, Canada, and Mexico that Italy will not be attending.
The squad announcement is expected on June 10. The irony does not require elaboration. It demands it.
The Four Serie A Names Didier Deschamps Could Not Ignore
RMC Sport‘s reported squad includes Mike Maignan, the AC Milan goalkeeper who has quietly cemented himself as arguably the finest shot-stopper in Europe over the past three seasons.
Commanding, explosive, and technically immaculate, Maignan is not a selection that requires justification – he is France’s first choice, full stop.
Alongside him, Marcus Thuram of Inter earns his place on the back of a stunning 2025-26 campaign: 16 goals in 34 Serie A appearances, building on the Euro 2024 breakout where he scored three times in six games.
The younger Thuram has become one of the most reliable forwards in world football, and Deschamps knows it.
Adrien Rabiot, who completed a free transfer to AC Milan from Juventus in summer 2025, also makes the cut.
With 68 France caps since 2016 and three goals and six assists across 32 Serie A matches this season, Rabiot has reinvented himself in the red and black – quieter at the Juventus Stadium, but influential at San Siro.
The most intriguing inclusion is Manu Koné, the 24-year-old Roma midfielder who arrived from Borussia Mönchengladbach for €35 million in January 2026.
Four goals and five assists in 18 Serie A appearances later, Koné has earned a first senior France call-up. Roma’s gamble, emphatically vindicated.
Serie A’s Quiet Rehabilitation: What France’s Choices Really Mean
The significance of four French internationals playing their club football in Serie A is not merely statistical. It is reputational.
It signals that the league which spent years fighting narratives of tactical stagnation and declining prestige has re-established itself as a destination where elite players not only arrive – they thrive.
Maignan and Thuram were already key figures in France’s 2022 World Cup squad. That they remain so, four years on, after seasons spent in Milan and Milan respectively, speaks to Serie A’s ability to sustain rather than diminish international-calibre talent.
Scott McTominay’s transformation into one of Serie A’s most dynamic midfielders at Napoli is further evidence of the same phenomenon – a league capable of extracting the best from players written off elsewhere.
The exclusions are instructive too. Juventus midfielder Khephren Thuram – younger brother of Marcus – reportedly misses out despite five assists in 28 games.
His Bianconeri teammate Pierre Kalulu is also left behind. AC Milan’s Youssouf Fofana does not make the cut, nor does striker Christopher Nkunku, who has managed 12 Premier League goals for Chelsea this season but whose injury record has undermined his case.
The competition for these spots, among players based in Serie A, tells its own story about the league’s standing.
The Painful Paradox: Italy Absent, Serie A Represented
There is a conversation Italian football cannot avoid this summer. The Nazionale has failed – again – to reach the World Cup.
Yet the league that hosts Inter, Milan, Juventus, and Roma will send players to North America wearing the shirts of France, and almost certainly several other nations besides.
As our analysis of Italy’s most valuable World Cup qualifying XI made clear, the talent deficit is not in Serie A.
It is in the pipeline that feeds the Azzurri – the structures, the youth development, the willingness to trust young Italian players before it is too late.
France does not have that problem. Deschamps will walk into Los Angeles in June with Maignan behind his defence, Thuram leading his attack, Rabiot controlling his midfield, and Koné adding dynamism from the bench.
All four forged, or sharpened, in Serie A. Italy will not be there to see it. The league will be.
