Football is an up and down, a constant eruption of emotions. This is all the more true in Calcio: although it cannot be said that Italian football is on the up, not to mention the intoxication of heights – it remains the liturgy of everyday life, the feelings are still there. And with it the value judgments about those people who are in the easily euphoric football public.
As far as that is concerned, nobody has had more turbulence than Roberto Mancini, 58: seducer and savior, gentleman and voice of reason, triumphant at the European Championship 2020 – for five years Mancini charmed the people as Italian national coach, he was one on whom most people in this divided country could agree on.
But that’s over: Mancini gave up his job on Sunday, Italy is without Commissario Tecnico there. A hit out of nowhere. This was preceded by a phone call with the association’s president, Gabriele Gravina, which he is said to have ended with a cool “Grazie”.
And the mood has changed elsewhere too: “Senza scuse”, commented about the Gazetta dello Sport, Mancini’s sudden resignation is inexcusable. After all, this function is not just about football, but about values, about responsibility for the nation. Can’t get any smaller.
Mancini received a number of powers of attorney from the association
But there are already arguments that the coach now as traditional stands there as a convicted traitor to his own promises. Although “personal reasons” were officially cited for the resignation, Mancini appears to be on the verge of a commitment as the national team manager of Saudi Arabia, where he has a three-year contract with a salary of 120 million euros. A quantum leap to the four million net salary he earns at the national receives. So a purely economic decision? There are hardly any alternative readings, and many others would certainly have been forgiven for taking this step.
Mancini, however, had enjoyed the role of the nation’s tutor, as someone who nursed and encouraged the country through football. He wanted to shape a cycle, even an entire era, at least that was his claim.
And Mancini was given full powers of attorney: just last week he was appointed a kind of general manager of the U21 and U20 teams, a position that was created just for him. All nominations would have gone through his desk, the coaches of the youth teams would only have been executive bodies. The Squadra Azzurra should have an overarching philosophy: Mancini’s philosophy. Never before had the Italian FA granted such influence to a coach, never before had a coach so betrayed that trust. In a way, the retirement fits into a pattern that Mancini has followed for most of his career.
Mancini has thrown up before, twice as coach of Inter Milan alone. An episode from 2008 has classic status, Inter had just been kicked out of the Champions League and had no chance against Liverpool when Mancini announced his retirement at the press conference – despite a contract he had recently extended for four years.
Because there were no offers from abroad, the coach completed his resignation a little later – but Inter took him at his word, Mancini was kicked out. As a result, he was long associated with the image of the claqueur, the opportunist who moves on when it suits his life plan.
When Mancini took office, he was not the first choice
Seen in this way, Mancini has undergone an amazing transformation, his popularity ratings have been high in Italy until recently. It also had to do with the defeatism that hung over Calcio at the time he was appointed national coach: the Squadra Azzurra had just missed out on qualifying for the 2018 World Cup, for the first time, which was a disgrace. Association officials and editorialists spoke of an “apocalypse”, the end of the world seemed not far away. Mancini wasn’t the first choice, but he quickly became the ideal man for the job because he felt a strong urge to change.
And that also applies to himself: as a club coach, he was inclined towards offensive teaching, but he was also an administrator and advocate of quick success. The Squadra Azzurra, on the other hand, needed a radical change, a coach who would breathe fresh esprit and new self-confidence into it. Mancini started a wild experimental phase, dozens of new players were tested, the game was thought from the beginning – and the path taken was finally, much earlier than expected, brought to its original purpose: “Mancio”, as he is called in Italy, led the humiliated and battered nation to EURO 2020 triumph over England, achieved the year after the pandemic peaked; the victory is seen in the country as a case study that shows that sport can do more than people often give it credit for. Or as Mancini put it: “We play for fun so that the Italians can have fun. They deserve it after all the suffering.”
An eternity success it was – and one that earned him a great deal of credit. Not a year later it was over with the sky tower, the Nazionale was not allowed to go to the World Cup again. Lost in the play-off against North Macedonia, a shame again. Under Mancini it went up high and back into the abyss. He was allowed to stay anyway, he had already managed to get off the ground, so why not do it again? Mancini accepted this assignment with a matter-of-factness that bordered on self-aggrandizement: who would be more suitable than him? The coach expanded his influence, he wanted to have a say everywhere, and he even messed with some men from the association to the end. But then came the fabulous offer from Saudi Arabia, which was obviously too tempting.
Unlike when Mancini took office, there is no shortage of alternatives: the guru-like offensive teacher Luciano Spalletti, recently champion coach in Naples, is just as much on the market as the erratic switchover football aficionado Antonio Conte, who has already successfully managed an ailing Squadra Azzurra. They too are difficult characters, they too will have demands that go beyond the financial. But Italy’s national team is doing so badly, according to the responsible bodies, that a radical change is needed. again.
And in the meantime, a perspective without Mancini doesn’t seem so bad to them: the coach is now exposed to criticism and malice, even in the Gazzetta dello Sport, otherwise always striving for a factual tone, a comment has been published in which it is determined how the car lover Mancini could expand his fleet with the new petrodollars. The point: he could afford a lot of sports cars. As for his standing in the country, not quite as much anymore.