Mancini wants to rekindle Italy’s love for football

MILAN: Roberto Mancini takes charge of his first competitive game as Italy coach in Friday’s Nations League opener against Poland in Bologna with the tough task of rekindling the nation’s love affair with their national side, decimated after the low of their World Cup fiasco.

The former Inter Milan and Manchester City boss was appointed in May after the fourtime winners’ shock failure to qualify for the World Cup for the first time since 1958.

Mancini’s job will be to rebuild a new and vibrant side going into the European Championship in two years’ time and heading towards the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The Nations League — in which Italy will also be up against European champions Portugal in Group 3 — will have an impact on seeding for Euro 2020.

And the 53-year-old has insisted that a key to his strategy was to bring in new blood after the departure of several veterans, including iconic goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, in the wake of Italy’s World Cup play-off defeat to Sweden last November.

Buffon’s exit has opened the way for 19-year-old AC Milan ‘keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma.

“We’re a great group, very young,” said Donnarumma at the team’s Coverciano training centre near Florence. “We’re determined to bring Italian football back where it deserves to be. It’s our duty.”

Italy have plummeted to an alltime low of 21st in the FIFA rankings. They were eliminated in the group stage at the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, although they fared better at the European Championship, reaching the final in 2012 and the quarter-finals in 2016.

But Mancini said he wanted to “try something different” and focus on youth, with four uncapped players, including Roma’s Nicolo Zaniolo, who is just 19 and has yet to start in a Serie A game.

“When I looked at TV and saw my name among the players called up I was overwhelmed, I didn’t expect it. I called my father and he started crying,” said Zaniolo, whose father Igor played for several Italian clubs, including Genoa. “I will work with humility, commitment and by watching the best and trying to steal some of their secrets.”

One of Mancini’s first decisions after being appointed was also to recall striker Mario Balotelli for the first time since the 2014 World Cup.