Roberto Mancini looked ahead to Italy’s upcoming friendly against Albania and reflected on their failure to qualify for the World Cup in Qatar.
The Azzurri will be forced to watch the upcoming tournament in Qatar from home over the next six weeks, a painful reality for Italy fans after their devastating play-off loss to North Macedonia earlier this year. Mancini decided not to resign after the disaster and instead will oversee the rebirth of the Azzurri ahead of Euro 2024.
Speaking in a press conference, Mancini first discussed the difficulties of the next few months for the Italian national team.
“It will be a difficult month… it has just started. In the bitterness we may feel at the moment, games have to be played, there are things to see and evaluate.
“There are things that will be useful for us from March onwards, even if it is of no value. We can try new guys and something tactical.”
He commented on the returns of Federico Chiesa and Nicolo Zaniolo, as well as the absence of Moise Kean.
“We’re happy that Federico is back. He has to find his condition again but he’s fine. Zaniolo is an important resource for us, he can give us a lot and he will improve in all aspects.
“He’s a young guy and when you’re young you always improve. Kean has been with us many times, if he continues to score and do well we’ll call him up.”
The Italy coach touched on why he cares about tomorrow’s friendly against Albania.
“Because it’s the basis of sport. We came to play a good game and we know they’re not that weak. We hope to play a good game and then we’ll see how it goes.”
He reflected on the emotional difficulties of not qualifying for the World Cup in Qatar.
“I’ve been experiencing it quite badly since March. We deserved to go, but unfortunately we missed our chances.
“Football is also this, after a great satisfaction came a great disappointment and now we cannot do anything. A World Cup without Italy is different, we have to work in the right way to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Finally, Mancini discussed his tactical plan for the Azzurri ahead of their friendly against Albania.
“Zaniolo for the qualities he has and for the player I know the mezzala can be a good position, but he often plays also as an outside forward and can also do that role there.
“As far as the tactics are concerned I don’t know which is the best, in the last two we changed a bit to see if it could give us an advantage. Our players can play more than one formation.”