West Ham United striker Gianluca Scamacca will get a taste of his native Italy on Saturday when the Hammers face Serie A side Udinese in a mid-season friendly.
In the second of three warm-up games West Ham have ahead of facing Arsenal upon their return to the Premier League on Boxing Day, the Hammers head to Udine in Italy and face a tie against Udinese at the Dacia Arena, kicking off at 2pm UK time.
For Scamacca, it is a return to Italy where he had been prior to joining West Ham for £30.5million in the summer from Sassuolo and has previous good memories of playing Udinese.
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Having played twice against them while on loan at Genoa during the 2021/22 season, Scamacca featured for former side Sassuolo against them twice last season, scoring in the latter on home soil during a 1-1 draw in what was his penultimate home match for Sassuolo.
Scamacca felt that facing a side like Udinese, who sit eighth in the Serie A standings despite not winning any of their last eight matches in all competitions prior to the World Cup break, will be a good challenge for the Hammers.
The 23-year-old is also eyeing his first-ever goal at Udinese's Dacia Arena home, having scored against them at Sassuolo's Mapei Stadium.
“It’s good to play in Italy again and against a good team in Udinese which is playing well, so it should be a very good match,” Scamacca told West Ham's club website.
“I think Udinese is one of the teams in Italy which play with a high intensity, like in the Premier League, so it will be a good test for us.
“I’ve played in this stadium before and it’s new and big, but I have not scored there before, so I hope to score there on Saturday!”
While Scamacca did not score during the first mid-season friendly away at Cambridge United on Tuesday night, he did provide an assist in the 4-2 win and looked lively during the second half at the Abbey Stadium.
Scamacca, who got the assist for Said Benrahma's excellent goal to make it 3-1, had four good chances to score when coming on. He first fired a chance at Cambridge goalkeeper Will Manion, before his follow-up was steered on goal by Michail Antonio, only to be blocked and then flagged for offside.
The Italian then went close twice late on but steered wide on both occasions, taking his wait for a goal to ten matches in all competitions, including the win over Cambridge. He is still the club's top scorer this season with six goals, four of which have come in the Europa Conference League.
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