In last week’s World Cup play-off semi-final, Italy lost 1-0 to North Macedonia at home and missed the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. However, Italian football people have expressed their hope that coach Mancini will stay in office, and Mancini said on Monday that he wants to stay and wants to lead Italy to the World Cup championship.
At 2:45 am Beijing time on March 30, Italy will play a warm-up match with Turkey. Mancini told a pre-match press conference: “I’ve spoken to Italian Football Federation president Gravina over the past few days and it’s good that we’re on the same page on everything. I will discuss my future in the next few days, and after this warm-up match, we will calmly think about what needs to be improved in the future.”
Mancini became the coach of the Italian national team in 2018. He led his team to the European Cup last summer, and his coaching ability was affirmed. In this World Cup European qualifier, Italy remained unbeaten with 4 wins and 4 draws, but unfortunately only finished second in the group. In the play-off against North Macedonia, Italy won the game without scoring, but was beaten by an opponent’s long-range shot in stoppage time.
Mancini said: “I’m very happy to see the work we’ve done over the past few years being recognised, that’s the most important thing, we won a well-deserved victory. In the qualifying group stage, we could have finished with four points. Leading the group ahead of Switzerland. We could have won 3-0 away from Basel. We made a mistake (missed penalty), but we had other chances to score. But that’s all for now It’s past, it’s useless to think about it, unfortunately it has happened and we have to accept it. We will assess our mistakes and see what needs to be improved.”
Before this game, 9 Italian internationals left the national team early to return to their respective clubs, to which Mancini explained: “I let them leave, if I can do something for them and the club…Insigne There have been problems with his body before, and his physical condition has only reached 50%. Immobile will not be able to play tomorrow, and Verratti has not reached his best state. As for Jorginho, Chelsea had previously allowed him to return to the national team to prepare for the game. He wasn’t even scheduled for the FA Cup. In this warm-up game against Turkey, it was the right thing for us to try other solutions. We played against Turkey in the European Cup too and they have always had great technical players.”
Mancini now has the idea of staying and coaching the national team, and he also talked about the future of Italy: “I want to stay because I am still young and my goal is to win the European Cup and the World Cup, but now The second goal had to be postponed. I still enjoy being here, and with these players, we can do something important together.”
After Italy missed the World Cup, Italian national television also awarded Mancini a large Golden Tapir Award. The Golden Tapir Award is mainly awarded to the most unlucky and frustrated person in the recent past. Mancini also emphasized when he won the award: “I deserve this giant golden tapir award. I am very confident, but unfortunately sometimes things go wrong. But I will not give up, we will work hard again for the next World Cup. try.”
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