Carlton Myers may want to come out of international retirement and play for Italy but he has yet to tell coach Carlo Recalcati - at least by the e-mail that Recalcati is requesting.

In a week in which Recalcati is examining the potential of future Italy players, it's Azzurri great Myers - the star of the 1999 European Championship winning side - who is the talking point.

After Recalcati led Italy to the bronze medal at the European Championships last summer, he announced that the door to the Azzurri team was open to every basketball player in the country as long as they e-mailed him to express a desire to play.

Hundreds of players have gone on line to inform Recalcati of their interest - but 32-year-old Myers isn't one of them.

In Wednesday's edition of Rome's Corriere dello Sport, the newspaper which covers Myers' club side Lottomatica Roma, Recalcati repeated: "He should first send me an e-mail."

Myers announced at the start of the season at a Roma press conference that he wanted to play again for Italy after being inspired by their bronze medal performance at Eurobasket in Sweden.

Several members of that Azzurri squad expressed reservations about the basketball icon returning because it could disrupt team harmony.

Myers later qualified his remarks to say that he would be willing to come back after the Olympics.

He is a legend in the Italian team game however, and many of the sport's supporters would relish seeing him play in Athens.