Roberto Mancini is coming back to coach Italy — and the fact that his return counts as the stable option tells you everything about the state of Italian football right now.
The FIGC has confirmed Mancini will take charge for a second stint, stepping in after the federation imploded spectacularly over Andrea Pirlo's failed appointment. Pirlo, the elegant midfield conductor of Italy's 2006 World Cup triumph, had emerged as the frontrunner after Pep Guardiola turned the role down. Then came the sponsorship controversy: Pirlo's association with Russian betting company Fonbet reportedly killed the deal before it ever started, triggering a full-blown institutional crisis.
The Pirlo fallout
The consequences were immediate and messy. Technical Director Paolo Maldini and adviser Leonardo — two of Italian football's most recognisable names — resigned less than three weeks into their roles, apparently unwilling to be part of whatever came next. Claudio Ranieri is now expected to step in as the new technical director, which at least brings some credibility back to the table.
Into this wreckage walks Mancini, again.
His record with the Azzurri is genuinely mixed. He delivered Euro 2020 — a tournament win that felt like a renaissance for Italian football after years of tactical stagnation. Then came the 2022 World Cup qualifying disaster, where Italy failed to reach Qatar entirely. He left in 2023 for the Saudi Arabia job, then moved to Al-Sadd in Qatar. Neither spell suggested a coach chasing legacy over a paycheque.
What this means for Italy's odds
Italy have Nations League fixtures and World Cup 2026 qualifying on the horizon. Mancini knows the environment, knows the players, and won't need time to decode Italian football's internal politics — he's already lived through them. That familiarity has real value when the alternative was clearly chaos.
Whether his second stint can replicate the highs of the first is genuinely uncertain. The squad is in a different place, the federation has just embarrassed itself publicly, and Mancini himself hasn't exactly been coaching at elite club level. Anyone pricing Italy as dark horses for 2026 should factor all of that in before getting too comfortable.
The FIGC needed a name that would stop the bleeding. They got one. Whether that's enough is a different question entirely.
