Mario Balotelli and Stephan El Shaarawy, both sons of immigrants, are the new faces of Italy.
And at the Confederations Cup in Brazil, the AC Milan forwards will be leading the attack.
With a combined age of 42, the 22-year-old Balotelli and the 20-year-old El Shaarawy also form the youngest forward tandem of any elite national team.
While they have not played together much with Italy yet, the pairing worked well at Milan in the second half of the Italian season after Balotelli transferred from Manchester City in January.
El Shaarawy tied for third in Serie A with 16 goals and Balotelli scored 12 in only 13 appearances. Perhaps even more important than the numbers, though, is the image of two players born to foreigners representing a country that has long been ill at ease with its growing immigrant classes.
Balotelli was born in Sicily to Ghanaian immigrants before being adopted by an Italian family. El Shaarawy, who was born in the Ligurian town of Savona to an Italian mother and Egyptian father, is nicknamed "Il Faraone" – The Pharaoh.
Balotelli is often the target of racist chants during Serie A matches, and sometimes during national team games, too.
In May, a Serie A match against Roma, was suspended for the first time – albeit for only a couple minutes in the second half –due to racist chants directed at Balotelli.
"They say that football is combating racism but it doesn't seem so to me, looking at the rules," Balotelli said. "Not enough is being done. All they've done is given the referee the power to suspend a match in cases of certain chants. But the fact is that his feeling might not be the same as mine. Shouldn't I decide if an insult is taken as racist or not?
"Racism is a real problem here and it needs to be combated with more determination," Balotelli said. "I don't know if we'll ever win the battle but we've all got to try to together."
Balotelli could not play for Italy Under 15s and U17s because he could not apply for Italian citizenship until he was 18, according to a law that Cecile Kyenge, the integration minister and Italy's first black cabinet member, is attempting to change.
Since he has started playing for Italy, Balotelli has been impressive. His two-goal performance in the 2-1 win over Germany in last year's European Championship semi-finals was a display of his raw power.
The diminutive El Shaarawy, meanwhile, shot to prominence in the first half of the Serie A season after Zlatan Ibrahimovic left Milan for Paris Saint-Germain. With 14 goals, he was the league's top scorer at the season's midpoint, and he has also drawn praise for his willingness to run back and help out his defenders as well.
However, El Shaarawy struggled to recapture that form in the second half of the season, with Italian media surmising he was tired.
"It's not true that he's tired," the Italy coach Cesare Prandelli said. "Our data says exactly the opposite - that he's one of the players in the best form. Evidently, at the end of the season he had a mental drop off. So many people said he was tired that in the end he convinced himself that he was tired, too."
Either way, Italy's attack is at the feet of Balotelli and El Shaarawy.
Italy at a glance
Fifa world ranking 8
Qualified Euro 2012 runners-up; Spain qualified as world champions.
Best Confederations Cup result none
Other major honours World Cup winners: 1934, 1938, 1982, 2006; European champions: 1968
Coach Cesare Prandelli
Prospects Italy have made a good start to their World Cup qualifying campaign, with four wins in five Group B matches, and should be back in Brazil next year. Italy qualified for this tournament after finishing runners-up to Spain in last year’s European Championship and Prandelli is taking it seriously. Maintaining his strict rules, he dropped the Roma forward Pablo Osvaldo from the squad after his rant at his club coach at the end of the Coppa Italia final against Lazio last month. Italy are in Group A with Brazil, Japan and Mexico and should reach the semi-finals.
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The finalists
Player of the Century, 2001-2020: Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus), Lionel Messi (Barcelona), Mohamed Salah (Liverpool), Ronaldinho
Coach of the Century, 2001-2020: Pep Guardiola (Manchester City), Jose Mourinho (Tottenham Hotspur), Zinedine Zidane (Real Madrid), Sir Alex Ferguson
Club of the Century, 2001-2020: Al Ahly (Egypt), Bayern Munich (Germany), Barcelona (Spain), Real Madrid (Spain)
Player of the Year: Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich)
Club of the Year: Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Real Madrid
Coach of the Year: Gian Piero Gasperini (Atalanta), Hans-Dieter Flick (Bayern Munich), Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool)
Agent of the Century, 2001-2020: Giovanni Branchini, Jorge Mendes, Mino Raiola
One in nine do not have enough to eat
Created in 1961, the World Food Programme is pledged to fight hunger worldwide as well as providing emergency food assistance in a crisis.
One of the organisation’s goals is the Zero Hunger Pledge, adopted by the international community in 2015 as one of the 17 Sustainable Goals for Sustainable Development, to end world hunger by 2030.
The WFP, a branch of the United Nations, is funded by voluntary donations from governments, businesses and private donations.
Almost two thirds of its operations currently take place in conflict zones, where it is calculated that people are more than three times likely to suffer from malnutrition than in peaceful countries.
It is currently estimated that one in nine people globally do not have enough to eat.
On any one day, the WFP estimates that it has 5,000 lorries, 20 ships and 70 aircraft on the move.
Outside emergencies, the WFP provides school meals to up to 25 million children in 63 countries, while working with communities to improve nutrition. Where possible, it buys supplies from developing countries to cut down transport cost and boost local economies.
MATCH INFO
Manchester City 3 (Silva 8' &15, Foden 33')
Birmginahm City 0
Man of the match Bernado Silva (Manchester City)
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
