Roberto Mancini is coming back to finish a job he never wanted to leave unfinished. Italy's football federation confirmed on Tuesday that the 61-year-old will return for a second spell as national team coach, with Claudio Ranieri installed alongside him as technical director, ONE reports.
FIGC president Giovanni Malagò announced the appointments at a press conference, ending weeks of turmoil over who would try to drag the Azzurri back to a World Cup they have now missed three tournaments running. "I believed it was right for Roberto Mancini to become head coach of the Italy national team, for a number of reasons. I take full responsibility for this decision," Malagò said, according to reports from the announcement.
Mancini needs no introduction to Italian fans. He led the national team to European Championship glory at Euro 2020, one of the great redemption stories in Italian football after the Azzurri had failed to even qualify for the 2018 World Cup. He walked away from the job in August 2023 to take over Saudi Arabia's national team, a lucrative move that ended in mutual separation last year.
He returns to a federation in disarray. Gabriele Gravina resigned as FIGC president in April after Italy's World Cup qualifying campaign collapsed with a defeat to Bosnia and Herzegovina — the third straight cycle in which the four-time champions have failed to reach the tournament. Malagò was elected his successor in June.
The search for a new coach then descended into chaos of its own. Paolo Maldini and Leonardo were brought in to oversee the process but lasted barely 16 days before resigning, after pushing hard for Andrea Pirlo to get the job. Malagò blocked Pirlo's candidacy over an undisclosed commercial tie to a Russian betting company that neither he nor the federation's technical leadership had been aware of, ONE reports.
Before turning to Mancini, Italian football's leadership had also made a run at Pep Guardiola. Maldini and Leonardo reportedly flew to Barcelona with a full project proposal for the Manchester City manager, only for Guardiola to turn it down for personal reasons.
That left Mancini, a coach with an actual trophy on his Italy CV, as the obvious fallback — and Ranieri, 74, as the calming presence the federation wanted next to him. Ranieri will serve as technical director and president of Club Italia, effectively taking on the administrative and organisational side of the operation while Mancini focuses on the pitch.
Both men have reportedly already signalled they are willing to work within the federation's financial constraints as they take on the job, a notable gesture given the fallout from the Maldini-Leonardo episode and the wider mess Italian football finds itself trying to clean up.
Mancini and Ranieri were due to be presented together at a press conference, with the immediate task in front of them unenviable: rebuilding a national team that has now spent a decade on the outside of world football's biggest stage looking in.
