HAD Riccardo Montolivo been recruited by the German FA in his youth and ended up wearing white and not blue tonight, his would not have been a defection of convenience.
HAD Riccardo Montolivo been recruited by the German FA in his youth and ended up wearing white and not blue tonight, his would not have been a defection of convenience.
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Gianni Russo
The Italian midfielder has a German mother and spent childhood summers visiting her family and making friends in the city of Kiel, to the north of the country.
Had a sceptical German media questioned him upon his first selection, they may have been surprised by the lack of a translator. Montolivo speaks fluent German and answered questions in both languages at the press conference before both sides of his heritage duke it out for a place in the final of Euro 2012.
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