Roberto Mancini issued an apology in his first public comments Wednesday after being rehired to coach an Italy squad in crisis three years after he abandoned the same job for a lucrative contract with Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m very sorry,” Mancini said. “It was like losing the woman of your life. And it means you did something that shouldn\u2019t have been done. So I\u2019m sorry, very sorry also for everything that happened over these last three years. \u2026 I\u2019m going to try to bring the national team back where it belongs.”<\/p>\n
Italy failed for a third straight time to qualify for the World Cup, prompting the resignations of federation president Gabriele Gravina and coach Gennaro Gattuso in April, shortly after a playoff defeat to Bosnia and Herzegovina.<\/p>\n
The 61-year-old Mancini led the Azzurri to the European Championship title in 2021 but shockingly resigned as Italy coach in August 2023, taking over Saudi Arabia\u2019s national team two weeks later.<\/p>\n
“It was completely my fault,” Mancini said, referring to a lack of communication with Gravina.<\/p>\n
(Photo by Shaun Botterill – UEFA\/UEFA via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n Mancini\u2019s first match back in charge will be against Belgium in the Nations League on Sept. 25 at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome. He was asked about what type of reception fans might give him.<\/p>\n “I realize some people will be against me,” Mancini said. “I\u2019m hoping the squad plays well enough that maybe people will forgive me.”<\/p>\n Mancini was a fourth-choice option after Carlo Ancelotti and Pep Guardiola turned the job down and Andrea Pirlo was dropped as a candidate amid political concerns over a sponsorship deal with a Russian betting firm.<\/p>\n (Photo by Claudio Villa – FIGC\/FIGC via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n Former Leicester and Roma coach Claudio Ranieri was hired as the federation’s technical director.<\/p>\n Ranieri said making soccer schools less expensive and more appealing for young Italians, who are gravitating toward other sports \u2014 like tennis, inspired by top-ranked Jannik Sinner \u2014 would be a priority.<\/p>\n “We need to bring kids back to soccer,” Ranieri said. “Our national youth teams are performing well. We need to work on enabling players on the under-21 team to make the jump to the first team; and making sure that the Italy coach has players to choose from.”<\/p>\n Ranieri also suggested a move away from Italy’s historic devotion to tactics.<\/p>\n “We\u2019re great tactically, others are good technically. Abroad, there\u2019s not so much attention on the tactical aspects like there is here,” Ranieri said. “We need to go back to developing individual skills.”<\/p>\n Between 2018 and 2021, Mancini coached Italy to a world-record 37-match unbeaten run.<\/p>\n However, a 1-0 semifinal playoff loss to then-67th-ranked North Macedonia at home in 2022 meant that the Azzurri again missed out on the World Cup.<\/p>\n Mancini nevertheless kept his position before surprisingly quitting in August 2023. He left Saudi Arabia in 2024 and was most recently coach at Al-Sadd in Qatar, before departing last month.<\/p>\n Mancini also previously steered Inter Milan and Manchester City to league titles.<\/p>\n Reporting by The Associated Press.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Roberto Mancini issued an apology in his first public comments Wednesday after being rehired to coach an Italy squad in crisis three years after he abandoned the same job for a lucrative contract with Saudi Arabia. “I\u2019m very sorry,” Mancini said. “It was like losing the woman of your life. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}