Mancini Returns as Italy Coach After Third World Cup Miss — SkimNews
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- Roberto Mancini has returned as Italy head coach for a second spell, five years after winning Euro 2020 at Wembley, following Italy's failure to qualify for a third consecutive World Cup.
- Italy's World Cup collapse triggered the resignations of coach Gennaro Gattuso, Italian FA president Gabriele Gravina, and Gianluigi Buffon as the team's head of delegation.
- Italy's last World Cup knockout appearance was the 2006 final against France; they have won just one World Cup match since — a 2-1 victory over England at Brazil 2014.
- Italian player development has sharply declined: the CIES Football Observatory figures cited in the article show Italy produced just 413 football exports from 2020-2025, ranking 24th globally behind the United States, Japan and Russia, while the other four big-five European leagues each exported over 1,000.
- Serie A gave only 1.9% of its minutes to under-21 players in 2025 — the second-lowest share among the world's top 50 leagues — and only one capped Italy player was under 24 between June 2025 and February 2026 (Inter forward Pio Esposito), compared with a dozen for England.
- Mancini's first 34-player squad back included nine uncapped players and 11 aged under 23, featuring 18-year-old Borussia Dortmund striker Samuele Inacio, Crystal Palace-bound defender Honest Ahanor, Brentford's Michael Kayode, FC Nürnberg's Ali Zoma (20 goals in 36 German second-division appearances) and Sporting CP midfielder Issa Doumbia.
- Italy face Belgium, Turkey and France in a demanding Nations League Group A as captain Gianluigi Donnarumma pledged: 'History has taught us that. So we have to bring Italy back to where it belongs.'
Why it matters: Italy's three straight World Cup misses represent their deepest slump since lifting the 2006 trophy, and the CIES export data — 413 players, 24th globally, behind the US, Japan and Russia — frames the crisis as a structural pipeline problem rather than a coaching one. With veteran signings like De Bruyne, Modric and Vardy filling Serie A while youth pathways stagnate, Mancini's mandate is to reverse a decade-long talent decline before a brutal Nations League group against Belgium, Turkey and France.
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