Giovanni Malagò's Mission to Revitalize Italy's National Team

Giovanni Malagò has a new job and a very old problem: fixing Italy.

Elected as the new FIGC President with almost 69% of the votes, Malagò walks into an office heavy with history and expectation. The mandate is blunt and unforgiving – rebuild the national team, restore belief around the Azzurri badge, and sketch out a future that looks more like 2006 than the recent years of missed tournaments and early exits.

He does not have time to ease into it. Among his first defining choices will be two positions that shape everything: the head coach and the technical director.

Malagò’s first big call

Malagò, already a central figure in Italian sport as President of the Organising Committee for the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, now finds himself at the heart of the country’s most scrutinised team. The national side is not just another project; it is a national obsession, a weekly referendum on the state of Italian football.

The mission, as outlined, is simple only on paper: rebuild, reassure, relaunch.

That means new ideas, new structures, and the right personalities in the dressing room and in the corridors of power at Coverciano. The technical director role, in particular, will be crucial in setting the philosophy, guiding talent pathways, and creating a coherent identity that has often gone missing between one tournament cycle and the next.

And this is where one name has already set the debate alight.

Maldini back in Azzurri colours?

According to Gazzetta and Corriere della Sera, Paolo Maldini has already been contacted over a potential appointment as the Azzurri’s technical director. No official confirmation, no grand unveiling – just a serious conversation about putting one of Italy’s most iconic figures at the centre of a national reboot.

The idea is powerful. Maldini, the legendary former Italy and AC Milan captain, carries a weight few can match. As a player, he defined elegance and authority in defence. As an executive at Milan, he helped steer the club back into the Champions League and back to the Scudetto, blending heritage with modern planning before his spell came to an end.

Now his name is being tied to a different kind of rescue act.

Images of Maldini on the touchline, such as that October night in Empoli in 2022, still feel fresh. He watched on then as a club director, sharp suit, sharp eye, fully immersed in the modern game. The prospect of that same presence overseeing the national team’s technical direction is exactly the kind of move that energises a restless fanbase.

The discussion has already started, and it will only grow louder.

A crossroads for Italian football

Malagò’s election is not just a change of name on the FIGC letterhead. It marks a turning point for a federation under pressure to modernise while respecting its traditions. His work with Milano Cortina 2026 showed his ability to operate on a grand stage, coordinating complex projects with international scrutiny. The Italy job brings a different kind of tension – weekly, emotional, relentless.

A Maldini appointment would send a clear signal: a return to elite standards, to a culture where the shirt demands the highest level of professionalism and ambition. It would also place a figure with deep roots in Italian football at the centre of decisions about youth development, tactical direction, and long-term planning.

For now, the scenario remains in the realm of serious possibility rather than official fact. But the outlines are there. A new president with a clear mission. A legendary captain potentially stepping into a key leadership role. A national team in need of direction and identity.

Italy has been here before, at a crossroads between nostalgia and renewal. This time, the choices Malagò makes – and whether Maldini becomes part of them – will define not just the next tournament, but the next era of the Azzurri.