Reheated leftovers. Why Italy’s national football team keeps sinking

On 28 July 2026, sixteen days after appointing Paolo Maldini as technical director and Leonardo as advisor, the FIGC announced their resignations and the appointment of Roberto Mancini as head coach and Claudio Ranieri as technical director.

The reason is well known: Maldini and Leonardo choose Pirlo as manager. Malagò vetoes Pirlo over his ties to Fonbet (a Russian betting company). Maldini and Leonardo resign. Malagò recalls Mancini.

Yes, Roberto Mancini. The manager who failed to take Italy to the 2022 World Cup now returns with the task of taking us to the 2030 World Cup.

In short, yet more reheated leftovers.

The Pirlo affair, explained

Whether or not Pirlo was the first choice (rumours about Guardiola had been circulating for some time), the outcome is the same. While nations such as Spain, France and Morocco cement their status through decade-long programmes capable of producing talent and securing high positions at every tournament, Italy argues over who its national manager should be, allowing itself to keep executives in post for just  sixteen days.

The stated problem was Fonbet: a Russian betting platform with which Pirlo had a commercial relationship. Whether that is the truth or a mere pretext (after all, Pirlo’s track record is not exactly exemplary), we will never know. One thing is certain, though: it was “an embarrassment” (as Minister Abodi put it). Malagò replied: “That depends on who caused it”.

Meanwhile, Germany signs Klopp and France signs Zidane.

The people change, the result does not

Over the last ten years, the Italian national team has had Conte, Ventura, Mancini, Spalletti, Gattuso and now Mancini again. It won a European Championship and missed three consecutive World Cups. The 2022 tournament in Qatar was the biggest shock: knocked out by North Macedonia in a play-off nobody imagined losing. The 2026 one barely even made the news.

Every time a crisis hits, the response is the same: change the coach. Look for a new figure. Announce a new era. Hold the press conference. And start all over again when things go wrong. The players change (on the surface), but the outcome does not. The hope was that Malagò would bring fresh lifeblood, but that clearly does not seem to be the case…

Speaking of press conferences, the one presenting Mancini and Ranieri was held yesterday, 29 July. Broadcasters will not be allowed to bring their own cameras into the room: the footage was produced and distributed directly by the FIGC, and sold (at a price of 500€) to interested channels.

A federation that fails to take the team to the World Cup, and then stages the unveiling of the new manager so that it alone controls the images, says a great deal about the direction it is looking in.

The Italian national team is an irrelevant brand

The main problem with the Italian national team, however, is not the manager. It is probably not even its leadership, but the fact that it has stopped being something interesting to watch.

Sinner is world number one. He has won Slams and, when he plays, Italy stops. The national volleyball teams, men’s and women’s, collect medals without end. Basketball, fencing, swimming: in all these sports Italy has world-class athletes delivering results that, compared with ten or twenty years ago, we now feel are more our own.

The truth is that we are falling out of love with the national football team. A positioning problem, pure and simple: what for decades almost automatically held a privileged place in the Italian sporting imagination now competes with alternatives capable of generating attention, recognition and belonging. Our favour has shifted to these other sports and the entertainment they bring. Not just a question of results, but of passion, engagement and pride.

A win of some kind at the next European Championship could rekindle interest. But a brand that needs a result to justify its existence is not a real brand: it is a product waiting for a promotion.

The problem is not the players, nor the manager

Italian football has a systemic problem that no national manager can solve alone. Youth academies produce fewer talents than those of France, England, Spain, Germany and Portugal. Clubs invest in foreign players because it pays. The pipeline that should turn young people into Serie A players and then into internationals works worse than it should.

This is not a problem you solve by choosing Pirlo over Mancini, or Mancini over Conte (the fact that even the national team managers are always the same speaks volumes…). It is a structural problem that requires decisions nobody wants to take, because results arrive years later and mandates are shorter. A long-term strategy, in fact, works exactly the other way round: it sets a direction first and allows the people in the roles to change without forcing the system to start over every time.

The FIGC keeps changing who leads the team without changing the system that produces it. It is first and foremost a governance problem: without criteria and continuity, every change of leadership forces the organisation to start over. It is the perfect definition of doing the same thing and expecting different results. Reheated soup, however skilled the person reheating it, will always be reheated soup.

We may as well accept it.