According to multiple reports in Italy, Roberto Mancini will remain in charge of Italy despite their elimination from the World Cup play-offs.
The CT signed a contract extension until 2026 just weeks before the European Championship won by the Azzurri last summer. At that time, nobody would expect the Azzurri to miss out on a second World Cup in a row only nine months later.
FIGC President Gabriele Gravia said after Thursday’s loss with North Macedonia that he would not sack Mancini and according to La Gazzetta dello Sport and Il Corriere dello Sport newspapers, the coach will remain in charge of La Nazionale. The ex-Sampdoria star has reportedly decided not to step down from his position, so tomorrow’s game with Turkey should not be his last one on Italy’s dug-out.
Gazzetta wrote that although surprises are always on the cards, Mancini has taken his decision. The same goes for Corsport, who noted that there is a 99.9% chance Mancini doesn’t resign. The 57-year-old will hold a pre-match press conference today and will likely confirm his decision to remain in charge until 2026.
Mancini resta: non molla da perdente. Si riparte da Verratti e dalla potenza di #Zaniolo https://t.co/opUiBdrvMK
— La Gazzetta dello Sport (@Gazzetta_it) March 27, 2022
On reflection, I would say the correct decision. Winning the Euros and a 37 match unbeaten, should not be thrown away. Hopefully he will learn from his mistakes and be more bold in his player choices going forward.
Great signal: Zero accountability in Italian football. Historic failure but everything remains the same.
Good decision.
This brain-dead mentality in Italy of sacking the manager EVERY time something goes wrong is ridiculous.
Time to sort out Serie A and the youth set-up. That’s where the main problems lie.
@FERBAN
Right on the money.
Someone performs badly, lets fire his boss!!! How ignorant football fans have become.
Sack sack sack, always sack only to fulfil ignorant fans wishes.
Forza Mancini all the way, although i dont like him 🙂
I hope this is true.
I’ll stick by it : I have never seen Italy play as good as in some of those Euro games. And that was against all odds, considering the decline of the Calcio.
Italy has gone from failures to failures in the world cup since 2006. With different coaches. With different players. This is not an isolated accident anymore. Changing coach again is not the recipe.
Reform the youth development in Italy. Let the young italians play. Set up constraints so the club are forced to let them play. Make it financially beneficial to let them play. That’s the way to go.
Allow Serie A teams to play their B teams in the league below (always maintaining a one division gap of course). See if that helps. Might bring through more youth. And impose all the limits on foreign players you want for that second team.
Good news. Unless it was Carlo Ancelotti in contention there’s no one better placed to guide Italy now. I’m sure he will learn from his mistakes.
Raineri, Cannavaro, Pirlo, gattuso no thanks. Step backwards rather than an adjustment forwards.
Good choice, but he needs to get his house in order, cut out the aged and underperforming players, he should be bold in his selections, and try new formations, and any player that’s not a starter in his club, or out of form should not be selected…
Mancini won the Euros – so what? He could have lost any of the four knockout games. Definitely against Spain and England where Italy was to weaker side. Also against Austria (who just sacked their terrible coach) where Italy failed to decide the game within regulation time (mostly due to Mancini waiting too long for the necessary and 100% obvious substitutions) and was lucky that an Arnautovic goal was barely offside.
Mancini didn’t lose 37 straight games – so what? Most of those games were again much weaker sides and only 2 games won against strong(er) teams (Netherlands and Belgium). Let’s see what Italy can do in June, when they play England and Germany twice as well as Argentinia. This could get very nasty – especially England will be out for revenge.
Sacking Mancini doesn’t solve anything? I tend to disagree. Mancini is a very confident, stubborn – some might say arrogant – man. Everyone saw that with his selections. And in the end every organization reflects the people at the top. After the EURO Italy go arrogant. They didn’t play the football that excited people at the EURO but slow, boring, overconfident football. It’s that attitude that did Italy in and that attitude came from the top. For Christ’s sake Mancini was talking about winning the world cup before the North Macedonia game. Italy has to realize that they are not as good as they think they are. I doubt Mancini has.
Italy has more problems than the manager? Yeah for sure. For a multitude of reasons they can’t develop as much talent as other nations. Of course that needs to change. Actually a lot has to change. But then keeping Mancini (a guy who has stuck with old (and) out of form players) is the wrong signal.
Great news.
Winning the European Championship & breaking the World Unbeaten Record are some achievements.
Let’s not forget the identity of the team & how well Italy have played during Roberto’s reign.
Let’s move forward now, hopefully we can beat Argentina in June, & add another trophy.
Forza Azzurri
He won the euros with those players..so he deserves respect with all his players…what they acheived is great and cannot be forgotten
The non-selection of Calabria by Manicini was a bad error. Calabria should have been the clear 1st choice at right back, he could have provided more creativity going forward as a deeper threat. The type of deep lying threat that Italy lack since losing Spinazolla. Lazari would be better 2nd option at right back. Florenzi and Di lorenzo are inferior to to Calabri and Lazari. Di Marco and Biraghi are better options at left back compared to the limited Emerson. Mancini made errors in selection on both full backs choosing on loyalty rather than merit. Mancini also lacked tactical imagination and had no plan B formation to the 4-3-3. The 4-3-3 has been worked out by opposition team and clearly was not working in the few games after Euro 2020. He lacked the courage and flexibility to find a different formation to trial with for example 3-5-2 or 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2 against teams that defend deep. Perhaps the congested fixture schedule did not allow him to make a plan B and trial different formations. Mancini deserves to continue despite the selection errors and his reluctance to evolve from past winning formula that clearly stopped working or did not work as well following the absence of Spinazolla . He needs to however learn from his mistakes and be more tactically flexible, innovative and evolve when the paradigm shifts. He also needs to be sharper in selection and promote better players like Calabria in to the team rather than relying on loyalty and sticking to average players like Di Lorenzo, Emerson, Florenzi just because they did a job in the past. It remains to be seen whether he will be able to do this to keep Italy relevant in the world stage but he deserves a chance after the Euro 2020 success.
Jimmy, england wernt stronger than italy at the euros italy dominated the final, spain had one decent game which was against us. Italy were the best team in the competition and justice was done when we won it
Spot on Rico. Anyone who downplays Italy’s performances at Euro 20 didn’t watch the games. Spain was the only team that played better than us when we met them. England on the other hand was dominated for 100 minutes of the final.
@ Frankie – Spain did not play better than us! Just because Spain hold the ball ad nauseum, people think that they play better than other teams! By definition, if a team plays than better than the opposition then they win! I’m fed up of people saying that Spain played better than us!!!
Anyway, with regards to Mancini, it’s amazing that after a spectacular fail, as this one of not getting Italy to the World Cup, he will remain in charge. Mancini’s arrogance is too much. Everyone in Italy and us making comments here in the UK knew that he had to drop Immobile! But he then made him captain and basically stuck two fingers up at everyone!
Remember Mancini thinks that no one knows football better than he does!
In spite of not qualifying for the world cup,it t’s the right choice. I trust he has learned from the recent failure. Frankly,there is no one better in Italy.He has brought a great style of football;let’s give him a chance to turn it around.
In spite of not qualifying for the world cup,it t’s the right choice. I trust he has learned from the recent failure. Frankly,there is no one better in Italy.He has brought a great style of football;let’s give him a chance to turn it around.
@Jimmy
You must be the only person who thinks England were better in the final lol. They started well, then faded, then Italy took over. Italy were easily the best team over the whole tournament.
@FORZA MOGGI
Cheers. I wasn’t crazy about him getting the job either, but I was proved wrong. They’re playing good football with an offensive attitude. Problem is, they have no-one to finish up front. But if he can’t sort it out, not many would, I imagine. At least he won’t go negative like many mangers would.
@gel then by your logic macedonia outplayed us in the playoff?
a team is only as good as theyre last success some people here are living on past glory we are not goin the the wc end off story lets move on