Italy Squad Report: Fortunes starting to turn on the injury front?

Life is good in the Italian camp.

Three points in the bag, an upcoming match against a team that could be poised for a letdown and perhaps most important of all, a healthy squad. 

All 23 players on the roster completed a full training session on Tuesday, and while that will leave manager Cesare Prandelli with some difficult decisions to make ahead of the upcoming match with Costa Rica, it's certainly a nice problem to have if you're the bench boss.

No wonder we're seeing plenty of players show off their pearly whites at the moment.

Fixtures/Results

Group D — June 14 — Italy 2, England 1

Group D — June 20 — Italy vs. Costa Rica

Group D — June 24 — Italy vs. Uruguay

Squad News/Rumors/Injury Report

At last, some good news in this space.

A quartet of players returned to the training pitch on Tuesday, as Gianluigi Buffon (ankle), Mattia De Sciglio (hamstring), Daniele De Rossi (neck) and Andrea Barzagli (undisclosed) all practiced with their teammates.

The former two have missed the most time, having suffered their respective ailments prior to the victory over England, while the latter pair both played in that contest, and missed just one training session in the aftermath.

It remains to be seen if all four - Buffon and De Sciglio in particular - will feature against Costa Rica, but this is certainly a step in the right direction.

Team Leaders

Goals: Mario Balotelli, Claudio Marchisio – 1

Assists: Antonio Candreva, Marco Verratti – 1

Five Quick Notes

1. Football Italia suggests that Cesare Prandelli could make as many as three changes to his starting lineup for the match against Costa Rica. On that note, this piece from ESPN FC notes that Lorenzo Insigne could be one of the men to benefit from the potential changes.

2. Gianluigi Buffon's selfie game is on point. His 'Blue Steel' is especially good:

3. There were plenty of people happy with Italy's 2-1 win over England, but perhaps none more so than this young child, who caught up with the England team bus in Brazil to remind the players of the scoreline.

4. Daniele De Rossi discusses the Italian midfield:

5. With so much talk about the sweltering heat the players have been forced to endure in Brazil, here's an update on the forecast for Friday afternoon in Recife. It's better than Manaus, thankfully.