Roberto Mancini is now being described as the principal candidate to return as Italy national team coach, with the debate intensifying ahead of the FIGC presidential vote on 22 June. Ivan Zazzaroni said the former Italy boss is the man most likely to take the Azzurri job, even as other big names continue to circulate around the post.
Zazzaroni said he had heard talk of Antonio Conte, Massimiliano Allegri, Pep Guardiola and Didier Deschamps, but insisted the leading figure is Mancini, the coach who hugged Gianluigi Vialli in 2021 after Italy's European triumph and who guided the team through 37 consecutive positive results. Mancini was the last coach to win a trophy with Italy at the European Championship five years ago, a record that still gives him weight in a search shaped by memory as much as by strategy.
That search is unfolding as the next FIGC president prepares to be elected on 22 June, with Giovanni Malagò and Giancarlo Abete having presented their candidacies for the federation's top job. The coaching question has become part of the same conversation because whoever takes over the presidency will inherit the responsibility of setting the direction for the national team and deciding whether to reopen the door to a familiar face or choose a cleaner break.
Zazzaroni also said Mancini made an unforgivable mistake in August 2023, but added that the coach has understood it and is ready to start again. The wording matters because it captures the unusual position Mancini now occupies: still defined by the glory of 2021, still shadowed by what followed, and still close enough to the job that his name can move the national-team discussion almost by itself.
The tension in the story is that the same qualities that once made Mancini the obvious man for Italy are the ones now being weighed against his past misstep. For supporters and decision-makers alike, the question is no longer whether he knows the job. It is whether the federation, after its presidential change, will decide that his record and readiness are enough to make a return possible.
