Roberto Mancini Returns as Italy's Head Coach with Claudio Ranieri as Technical Director

Roberto Mancini is back in charge of Italy. Five years after walking away, the man who took the Azzurri to the summit of Europe has agreed to lead the national team for a second time.

FIGC president Giovanni Malagò confirmed the move on Tuesday, pairing Mancini’s return with another heavyweight appointment: Claudio Ranieri will come in as technical director.

“Mancini is the coach,” Malagò said. “I believed that the best person to become head coach was Roberto Mancini.”

It is a decision steeped in both nostalgia and necessity. Italy have missed three consecutive World Cups. Gennaro Gattuso paid the price in April, leaving his post after failing to drag the team out of its qualifying malaise. The federation has turned back to the one man who recently made Italy feel invincible again.

Mancini’s first spell, from 2018 to 2023, rebuilt a broken side and restored its identity. The high point came at Wembley in 2021, when Italy outlasted England in a penalty shootout to win the European Championship. That night felt like the beginning of a new era.

It didn’t last. Italy then stumbled, failing to qualify for the 2022 World Cup and starting Euro 2024 qualifying sluggishly. The glow of Wembley faded into frustration. Mancini left with 58 games on the bench and a mixed legacy: a European champion who could not get Italy to the biggest tournament of all.

His club résumé remains formidable. Inter, Fiorentina, Manchester City – each chapter added to his authority. In England he broke City’s title drought, delivering their first Premier League crown in 2011-12 and proving he could handle the pressure of a project built to win immediately. That experience will be tested again now, in a country where patience is thin and expectations never are.

The shake-up at FIGC runs deeper than the dugout. Former technical director Paolo Maldini and his adviser Leonardo resigned on Monday, a dramatic response to the collapse of Andrea Pirlo’s candidacy as head coach. Pirlo’s appointment was blocked over his links to a Russian betting firm, a controversy that cut short what some inside the federation saw as a bold generational shift.

There was another big name in the frame. Pep Guardiola had been the FIGC’s first choice, but he turned the job down last month, forcing the hierarchy to look elsewhere. In the end, they circled back to a familiar figure who already knows the weight of the shirt and the scrutiny that comes with it.

Now Mancini returns to a national team still searching for stability, with Ranieri’s experience added upstairs to guide the broader project. The question is simple and ruthless: can the man who brought Italy a European title also drag them out of a World Cup wilderness that has lasted far too long?