Italy v Albania: Newcastle United fans' reasons to watch Euro 2024

We are going to be breaking down every reason to watch the first round of group games in Euro 2024 from a Newcastle United perspective covering players who play, have played or have been linked to Newcastle.

There will be a few tenuous links as we cover some games, but we will justify every selection.

Obviously, once the first round of fixtures is done there's no real point in doing more as every Nation will have been covered at least once.

The night-time kick-off on Saturday is Italy and Albania which gets underway at 8pm.

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Newcastle's biggest Italy connection is missing from the squad

Italy have plenty of Newcastle United connections, the biggest one being most notable by his absence and that is of course midfielder Sandro Tonali whose 10-month ban also applies to international football.

Starting at the back, there's Riccardo Calafiori whose name popped up a couple of months ago the 22-year-old defender is on the Toon's radar so he could be one to watch.

Federico Dimarco was strongly linked last summer when Newcastle looked to be shopping in Italy but nothing ever came of it. He is a phenomenal player but we've not seen any links around him for a while unfortunately.

We have managed to find a Newcastle-Albania link

Midfielder Nicolo Barella was the player everyone thought Newcastle wanted last summer before the shock signing of Sandro Tonali. We're still not convinced we were ever actually in for Barella.

Winger Federico Chiesa is a name that's never far away from Newcastle United's with the Juventus man's future a constant source of discussion. If he has a good tournament who knows what will happen?

I've got to be honest, I didn't think I'd find anyone for Albania but I was wrong. Chelsea striker Armando Broja was linked with a move to Newcastle in the summer of 2022 but nothing ever came of it.