Back to Mancini: a minor Italy has no room left for mistakes

By Marco Tirinato — Italian Next Gen

The summer we're leaving behind has been one of the most turbulent in the Nazionale's recent history. First came the dream — almost concrete — of a Maldini-Leonardo tandem leading the Azzurri project. Then the heavyweight name of Guardiola, floated more out of desperation than as a real negotiation. Both paths led nowhere, and in the end Malagò went back to knock on the most familiar door: Roberto Mancini's.

It is the safe, secondhand choice, one hopes. Because Mancini's record is a book with two opposing chapters, and both must be read without discounts. On one side is the man who gave Italy its most unexpected and beautiful triumph in years, building a recognisable style of play and a group that seemed to have rediscovered a lost identity. On the other is the coach who failed to qualify for the World Cup, leaving a wound Italian football still carries. Recalling him today is not an act of uncritical nostalgia: it is a conscious bet, made knowing exactly what he can give — and what he can still get wrong.

The new management's first call-ups, it must be said, tell an interesting story. There are names worth watching: Ahanor, Coppola, Kayode, Romano, Zoma, Inacio and Doumbia. A mix of profiles that shows how the quiet work on the youth pipeline — the work we report on every day on these pages — is actually producing material to build on. The foundation, in other words, is there. What's missing — and what no call-up list can create on its own — is the blend: the time, the patience and the right choices to turn a roster of promising names into a team.

And this is where the most urgent warning of this editorial comes in: the Nations League can no longer be treated as an afterthought. Let's say it plainly, because it's a truth that hurts but needs saying: Italy, today, is a minor footballing nation. Not in talent, not in history, but in the status it has earned on the pitch through three missed World Cup qualifications. A minor nation doesn't have the luxury of choosing which matches to take seriously. Every matchday, every call-up, every ninety minutes against opponents within our reach is a chance to rebuild credibility — or to waste it again. Underestimating the Nations League, treating it as a minor tournament good for experimenting without consequences, would be one more mistake from a system that has already collected too many.

If we really want to talk about a rebirth, we need to be honest about what it actually takes — not another slogan good for a press conference. For us, it rests on three words, simple but far from obvious:

Enthusiasm. What was lost on the nights in San Siro, Palermo and Zenica — something that can't be bought with a name on the bench but is built match after match, giving fans a reason to believe again.

Belonging. A sense of the shirt that goes beyond individual talent: a group playing for a shared project, not a collection of individuals on loan from Europe's big clubs.

Organisation. The plainest and most decisive word of all. Because talent, on its own, Italy has always had — what has been missing, cyclically, is a system capable of putting it to use: from the youth ranks to the senior Nazionale, without the usual breaks in continuity.

We hope Mancini, this time, can build on exactly these three words. Not because they're a magic formula, but because without them, no name on the bench — not even Guardiola's — would be enough to change the recent history of our football.