ROME — Roberto Mancini is back as Italy head coach for a second spell, tasked with reviving an Azzurri side that has missed the last three World Cups. The former Manchester City boss, who led Italy to the Euro 2020 title at Wembley, returns after a year in which Italian football hit its lowest ebb — no Serie A club passed the quarter-finals in Europe and only Atalanta reached the Champions League last 16. The failure to qualify for a 48-team World Cup proved the final straw, prompting the resignations of head coach Gennaro Gattuso, Italian FA president Gabriele Gravina and head of delegation Gianluigi Buffon.
Captain Gianluigi Donnarumma described the scale of the setback in an exclusive interview with Sky Sports. "It's a sensitive subject that affects me a lot, because not qualifying for three World Cups in a row is tough, and Italy certainly doesn't deserve that," Donnarumma said. "We have to work. The only way forward is to work," he added. "There has now been a change of coach, the return of Mr Mancini - and the objective is to work and try to take Italy back to where it deserves to be." Donnarumma continued: "I know it's not easy for the fans, but especially for us, because only we know how much it means to us to play in a competition like the World Cup. So we'll give everything to bring Italy back to where it deserves to be. We have a great responsibility because history says that Italy should always be there."
The decline has been long. Twenty years after beating France on penalties to win the 2006 World Cup, that remains Italy's last appearance in a World Cup knockout game, with just one World Cup win since — the 2-1 victory over England at Brazil 2014. Even the run to the Euro 2012 final has faded. According to the CIES Football Observatory, Italy produced just 413 football exports between 2020 and 2025, ranking 24th in the world behind the United States, Japan and Russia, while the other four nations in Europe's big five leagues all topped 1,000. Between June 2025 and February 2026, only one capped Italy player was under 24 — Inter forward Pio Esposito — compared to a dozen for England, and in 2025 Serie A gave just 1.9 per cent of minutes to eligible players under 21, the second-lowest among the top 50 leagues behind only the United Arab Emirates Pro League.
That stagnation was reflected in Serie A last season, where high-profile arrivals included veterans Kevin De Bruyne, Luka Modric and Jamie Vardy, and the managerial cycle kept rotating Antonio Conte, Max Allegri, Gattuso, Luciano Spalletti and Maurizio Sarri among top clubs — Sarri moved to Atalanta and Allegri to Juventus this summer. The exceptions point to another path. Cesc Fabregas led Como to Champions League qualification earlier this year, while Ruben Amorim has brought eye-catching football to AC Milan with the Rossoneri.
Mancini's first squad back signals a shift. His 34-player roster includes nine uncapped players and 11 players under the age of 23, headlined by Borussia Dortmund's 18-year-old striker Samuele Inacio, Chelsea-bound defender Honest Ahanor now at Crystal Palace, and Brentford's Michael Kayode. Highly rated Inter forward Esposito, who has five goals in nine Italy caps, is joined by FC Nurnberg's Ali Zoma with 20 goals in 36 appearances in the German second division and Sporting CP midfielder Issa Doumbia. "There will certainly be some established players. We're getting older, but we're still young, and there will also be some very young players joining the team," Donnarumma said. "So it will be a mixture, and we need to help these young players integrate well. They can give us a great deal of help. They're certainly talented players who need to play and gain experience, but I'm sure Italy will return to where it belongs."