Mancini ready for redemption: “I am sorry”. Leave Italy? "It’s like when you lose your wife…

The Italian national team restarts from Roberto Mancini and Claudio Ranieri. The 2021 European champion technical commissioner returns to the Italian bench almost three years after his resignation in August 2023, while Ranieri takes on the role of technical director of the FIGC and president of Club Italia. The presentation of the new course to the press took place at the Federation headquarters, in the company of president Giovanni Malagò, called to rebuild the technical summit after Italy’s failure to qualify for the third consecutive World Cup.

The choice of the new course comes at the end of hectic weeks. The candidacy of Andrea Pirlo has faded amidst controversy over its commercial relationships with the Russian betting company Fonbet, also causing the resignation of Paolo Maldini and Leonardo from federal positions. Malagò then recalled Mancini, entrusting Ranieri with the coordination of the entire Italian technical area.

Malagò: “We feel the weight of responsibility”

“I’m very happy. I think we all feel the weight of responsibility, perhaps due to the three World Cups for which we didn’t qualify or the fact that we haven’t played a knockout match in a World Cup for twenty years.” The president of the FIGC, Giovanni Malagò, said this during the press conference presenting Roberto Mancini and Claudio Ranieri.

On the media pressure and attention around the Azzurri, Malagò then underlined: “Football involves everyone, at any level. This great magnifying glass and the passion of the people are the beauty of our country”.

“I give you my word of honor that with Gabriele Gravina I hadn’t spoken to him, then yesterday he sent me a message: ‘Giovanni, very good, exactly what I would have done’. There is total agreement with Roberto’s choice.” Malagò then quoted a message from the Italian captain Gianluigi Donnarumma: “Since I couldn’t go to his wedding due to commitments, I sent him a little message and Gigio replied: ‘Pres, it’s exactly what the team and I wanted, thank you.”

Mancini: “I regret the farewell 3 years ago”

“I wanted to relieve you of some of the trouble and tell you about my story from three years ago. I believe that then there was a lack of communication with President Gravina and, if we had spoken to each other face to face, everything would have changed”. Roberto Mancini said this during the presentation press conference at the FIGC headquarters in via Po, returning to his resignation from the Azzurri bench and the subsequent choice of Saudi Arabia in 2023.

“I’m very sorry, the shirt and the national team are important to me,” added the coach. “I lost the woman of my life and I did something that shouldn’t have been done. I’m very sorry about this. Fate and President Malagò have given me the chance to make up for it and I will try to take Italy where it deserves.” “I understand that when things like this happen there are also those who are against my return, but I will try to make the team play so well that the fans can forgive me for what happened.”

On the players and the Italy to come

Mancini explained that he wanted to “put a team on the pitch that can do what it was able to do a few years ago – he underlined alluding to the European triumph – The players are there, they are young and we must trust them”.

“I think there are good and technical players. Then we will find the Bonuccis and the Chiellinis who will act as mother hens. I am convinced that we will put together a team that will play well.” This was declared by the Italian technical commissioner, Roberto Mancini, taking stock of the new direction of the national team and the possible balance between experienced players and young talents.

When asked about the tactical choices and ideas offered by the last World Cup, the coach explained: “We’ll see with the boys, but the basis will be that of a team with an offensive spirit”. “I hope that Kean and Retegui score the same goals as Ciro, because Immobile has scored many of them. But, in general, I don’t think we are in such a bad situation in attack.”

The contract and the youth teams

“When I arrived last time – he remembers – I stayed for five years, which is a long time, and I was fine. It was my favorite role. We signed a four-year contract and I hope we can win a major trophy, or even two, and to stay afterwards, if possible.”

The coach then underlined the importance of creating a common tactical identity with the FIGC youth sectors and of adapting to the characteristics of the men available. “Men count, game systems count, because in any case you also have to adapt to the players you have and not think that your system is the right one if there are players who can’t interpret it.” “I think that the national teams, at least the Under 21, the Under 20 and the Under 19, must have the same identity, also because in my opinion good players, at 18, must have their opportunity.”

Ranieri: “The national team is the crowning achievement of my career”

“It’s just the culmination of a career, a beautiful thing. I didn’t think it could happen and I’m very proud.” Thus Claudio Ranieri during the presentation press conference in Rome. “I know that there will be a lot of work to do in a difficult situation – he added – but my career as a coach shows that, in the face of difficulties, I have never backed down”. “It’s a difficult task, but what matters most to me is to make Italian fans fall in love with the national team again and allow children to finally see it play in the World Cup,” he concluded.

“How long it will take to fix football is difficult to say. Roberto has to fix the pitch, I am called to resolve the situation that cannot be seen, the work behind the scenes”, underlined Ranieri, outlining during the press conference the guidelines for the relaunch of the grassroots football movement. “When Maldini said that it takes ten years, he was referring to the fact that there are many 10-12 year olds to look after and help to become good. The difference with the other national teams – he underlined – is that we are good at tactics, they are good at technique. We need to get back to dribbling.”

Changing the football system

Among the priorities identified by the former coach is the accessibility of facilities for families. “At the beginning of June I was in Cagliari and an insider told me that children spend too much to go to football school. I want to understand how the school youth sector works. Children spend too much money to go to football school and there are families who cannot afford it. We cannot afford, in this historical moment in which young people are attracted by other games and video games, to take them away from football. We must try to bring them back to football and, to do so, we must lower the prices of football schools”.

A second pillar of Ranieri’s plan concerns the teaching methodology in the youth sectors. “We need to change our approach: enough with the tactics exasperated since childhood to only seek victory. We need to go back to developing individual technique. In the Italian youth teams we work well collectively, but the final step up from the Under 21s remains very difficult. Abroad, team tactics are not exaggerated as they are here.”

“We must reorganize the youth sectors, teaching how to block a ball, shoot on goal and deal one-on-one, setting up and correcting the boys as is done in tennis, to give the national team selector more options and more choice in the future”, he concluded.

The clash between UEFA and FIFA

“Between FIFA and UEFA today the situation is truly one of total conflict. It was already known that this was the case, but this affair has objectively determined a sort of boundary between these two realities. Honestly, these days I would have gladly done without it.” Giovanni Malagò, during the press conference, thus commented on FIFA’s recent proposals relating to the organization of the World Cup through a private company and the clear split with European football.

“Yesterday evening the general secretary of UEFA called me, asking for my availability for a videoconference with the most prestigious federations in Europe, Germany, Spain, France and England, and this was a certificate of great prestige for the FIGC and for those who preceded me”, explained Malagò.

“It is a project that I certainly define as particular on the part of FIFA. During the videoconference, President Ceferin expressed a contrary opinion and it seems to me that there are positions that, at an institutional level, go even beyond the world of football itself.”