ROME (AP) — Arsenal defender Riccardo Calafiori says Italy coach Gennaro Gattuso called him more often than his mother did over the last four months.
Which shows just how much attention Gattuso paid to his players between the Azzurri’s last game in November and Thursday’s World Cup playoff with Northern Ireland.
With the four-time champion attempting to avoid missing out on a third straight World Cup, Gattuso traveled up and down Italy and made several trips abroad to share dinners with his players and keep up team spirit.
“Over the last few months I heard from him more than my mother,” Calafiori said Tuesday at Italy’s Coverciano training complex in Florence.
“When I was out or not playing as much, he called me constantly,” Calafiori said of the month from late December to late January when he was out with a muscle injury. “And the dinner with him was great. It gave us the chance to be together. It was like a dinner among friends."
Besides Gattuso, Italy delegation chief Gianluigi Buffon and assistant coach Leonardo Bonucci — all former standout players for Italy — were also at the meal in London.
“There were a lot of soccer anecdotes shared, because the three of them have plenty of those,” Calafiori said.
Able to switch seamlessly between left and center back, the 23-year-old Calafiori helped Bologna qualify for the Champions League before transferring to Arsenal in 2024.
Now he’s switching his attention to limiting Northern Ireland’s dead ball opportunities, after recovering from a slight knock with Arsenal on Sunday.
“We need to be aware, because they’re dangerous. Free kicks can create the difference. The margins between squads are reduced in modern football,” Calafiori said. “We also need to pay attention to loose balls.”
Having become a regular with Italy, Calafiori is still regaining his fitness from his month off after beginning the season as a consistent member of Arsenal’s starting 11.
He's not a guaranteed starter at Arsenal these days, though, with Piero Hincapie doing well in Calafiori’s absence and keeping his place now that the Italian is back.
While Arsenal was beaten by Manchester City in the English League Cup final on Sunday, Calafiori is still in line to win the Premier League with Arsenal leading City by nine points.
But Calafiori has other goals, too.
“Going to the World Cup is the dream I had as a kid, so I can’t wait to play this game,” he said.
Besides beating Northern Ireland at home in Bergamo on Thursday, Italy would also then need to defeat either Wales or Bosnia and Herzegovina away next week to qualify for the upcoming tournament in North America.
The Azzurri were eliminated in the playoffs for the last two World Cups by Sweden and North Macedonia, respectively.
“We need to prepare like it’s a normal game,” Calafiori said. “We know how delicate it is.”
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Arsenal's Riccardo Calafiori, left, and Piero Hincapie celebrate after the English Premier League soccer match between Arsenal and Everton in London, England, Saturday, March 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Arsenal's Riccardo Calafiori reacts during the English Premier League soccer match between Arsenal and Everton in London, England, Saturday, March 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Everton's Tim Iroegbunam, left, and Arsenal's Riccardo Calafiori jump for the ball during the English Premier League soccer match between Arsenal and Everton in London, England, Saturday, March 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
President Donald Trump has cast another mail ballot in Florida as he continues to publicly bash the voting method as a source of fraud and push Congress to curtail the practice.
Palm Beach County voter records show the president voted by mail in a Tuesday special election for state legislative seats and that his ballot has been counted. Early in-person voting in the contest ran through Sunday, when Trump was still at his south Florida estate.
The White House said Tuesday that Trump's ire is at states using universal mail-in voting, not individual instances of voters needing accommodations to vote by mail. A spokeswoman pushed back specifically at the idea that his voting practice contradicts his push for new federal voting rules.
“As President Trump has said, the SAVE America Act has commonsense exceptions for Americans to use mail-in ballots for illness, disability, military, or travel – but universal mail-in voting should not be allowed because it’s highly susceptible to fraud,” said White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales in a statement.
A report by the Brookings Institution published in 2025 found that cases of mail voting fraud occurred in only 0.000043% of total mail ballots cast, or about four cases out of every 10 million mail votes.
Wales added: “As everyone knows, the President is a resident of Palm Beach and participates in Florida elections, but he obviously primarily lives at the White House in Washington, D.C. This is a non-story.”
Nonetheless, Trump has in the last week called mail-in voting “cheating" and “corrupt as hell.” He is urging Congress to pass the SAVE Act. The sweeping bill would bar universal mail ballots and, as Wales noted, limit the options to a select few voters such as those with disabilities, military commitments or who are traveling on Election Day. The measure faces steep odds in the closely divided Senate even with the president's pressure.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer tried to capitalize on the president's voting choice.
“According to Donald Trump, vote by mail is cheating when other people use it, but perfectly fine when he does it himself,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor.
Trump has fixated on mail ballots since he began falsely claiming that his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden was the result of fraud. Multiple U.S. courts and Trump's own attorney general have found no evidence of fraud that affected the outcome, despite the COVID-19 pandemic increasing the share of the electorate that cast mail ballots that year.
“We’re the only country in the world that does it that way. Corrupt as hell,” Trump said last week at the White House when hosting Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin.
Dozens of countries, including European democracies that are traditional U.S. allies, use some form of mail-in voting.
Trump said last week that the SAVE Act was the “biggest thing” pending in Washington, even as Congress and administration grapple with the Iran war and a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.
Last August, Trump used a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to blast mail voting.
“We’re going to start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they’re corrupt,” Trump said. “And it’s time that the Republicans get tough and stop it because the Democrats want it. It’s the only way they can get elected.”
The president, who changed his official personal residence and voter registration from New York to Florida during his first term, does not have a standing vote-by-mail request for all elections, according to the county records. That means he has to request a mail ballot for any individual election.
The ballot today includes Florida state House District 87 and Senate District 14.
Trump offered an endorsement late Monday in the House contest via his Truth Social platform.
“There is a very important Special Election tomorrow, Tuesday, March 24th, for Florida State House District 87 in beautiful Palm Beach County. ... TO ALL GREAT PATRIOTS IN FLORIDA STATE HOUSE DISTRICT 87: GET OUT AND VOTE FOR JON MAPLES! Polls are open from 7:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M.” Trump wrote, without mentioning that he had voted by mail or at all.
The Florida election comes one day after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a Mississippi case questioning whether states can count mail-in ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but not received until later. Trump has criticized those allowances in 14 states and the District of Columbia.
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Barrow reported from Atlanta. Associated Press reporter Stephen Groves contributed from Washington.
President Donald Trump waves after arriving on Air Force One, Monday, March 23, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
FILE - A worker pushes a cart of received mail ballots at the L.A. County Ballot Processing Center Nov. 4, 2025, in City of Industry, Calif. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope, File)
President Donald Trump walks down the stairs of Air Force One upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Monday, March 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)
