Completely unexpected, yet in some ways in the air, according to those who knew him. Very fast but also out of time. Inexplicable or perhaps perfectly logical, time will tell. The resignation of Robert Mancini I’m a bolt from the blue that arrived a year and a half late. The coach of the triumph of Euro 2021 but also of the lack of qualification a Qatar 2022 leaves today a national team that should have already left after that bloody match against Macedonia and that it probably wasn’t his for a long time.
Everyone wonders what is behind the farewell, which the now ex coach has concisely archived on Instagram like one “personal choice” without giving it to anyone to drink. Not even ten days ago there Figc had formalized the new structure of the Club Italydelivering to I miss the guide of all the national youth teams. And now the escape, at night in the middle of summer, communicated via Pec. Something must have happened. It was evident that the idyll of the early years had vanished, Mancini himself in the latest releases no longer even made an effort to pretend to show any enthusiasm. Even harmony with the federal president was no longer so strict Gravina that had kept them afloat together after the world fool. In recent weeks there had been friction in the choice of staffresulting in the removal of Alberigo Evani, which Mancini had not wanted but actually immediately. There has been talk of a possible entry of Bonucci in the blue team (denied by the person concerned), then he arrived Gianluigi Buffon as new head of delegation (the role that belonged to his great friend Vialli) and someone immediately identified the object of discord in the former goalkeeper. Mancini had accepted these appointments from above but he was restless, they say. Too little to justify such a traumatic separation. Time will probably tell what the truth is, but in these cases it is said “follow the money”: market rumors tell of a pharaonic offering from Arabia to lead the Saudi national team. It will be enough to wait a few weeks, perhaps days, to understand what is true and how personal this choice is.
The fact is that Mancini made the right choice at the worst possible moment. His cycle ended in March 2022 on the night of Palermo: all that followed, despite the Federation’s efforts to revive the project, was a decadent and in some ways grotesque coda, with the convocation of the natives and other questionable choices. It would be absurd to blame the coach for the comatose state of our movement, but he put some of his own into it: it was impossible to get up from such a painful defeat, as was also predictable after all. Mancini’s Italy no longer had a future, it was pointless for everyone to waste any more time.
The problem is the timing: in mid-August, in the middle of summer, less than a month from the decisive matches again against Macedonia and the Ukraine (9 and 12 September) to go to Euro 2024, an appointment that we just can’t afford to miss. A real stab in the back of the president Gravina who had believed in him to the point of handing him the keys to the Federation and, after all, to all of Italy football. The worst end of the most controversial and enigmatic blue cycle ever. Mancini was the coach of the streak of 37 consecutive useful results, of the blue Renaissance that had really deluded us that we were great again, of the unforgettable triumph of Wembley. But also the coach of the world defeat, who escaped on the night of August 15th with a contempt and disinterest for the blue shirt that no one in history had ever shown. Everyone can choose how to remember it.