How Roberto Mancini made Italy’s national team great again

Italy’s 2020 European Championship squad is set. Will coach Roberto Mancini lead the Azzurri to finally win it all come next summer?

Italy coach Roberto Mancini has said that when it comes to the players currently on his roster, what you see is what you will get come next June at the European Championship.

There’s a lot of confidence in that statement. It’s a stability Italian fans have been craving since the debacle of 2017 when the Azzurri failed to qualify for the World Cup finals for the first time in 60 years.

Italy officially clinched a spot in Euro 2020 during this past Saturday after a 2-0 win against Greece in Rome, a major milestone as Mancini rebuild this team.

“The group is more or less decided, two or three players might come in or out, maybe,” Mancini said at a news conference last week. “Then if someone is suddenly unavailable then we’ll see what happens, but the players who will go to the Euros are all here.”

Mancini has infused confidence into a program that saw the failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup as a larger symptom afflicting Italian soccer, most notably too many foreigners flooding into Serie A and not enough Italians getting playing time.

Francesco Acerbi, the 31-year-old Lazio center back fighting to be a starter, said the players are “enjoying our soccer” under Mancini.

“We are happy to be playing in Rome, hope to win and put in a performance that entertains the crowd,” he told reporters. “We want to continue the winning streak and qualify for the Euros as soon as possible. For those of us who play our club football there, playing for Italy at the Olimpico will be an extra special feeling.”

That’s just a taste of the enthusiasm in the Italian camp at the moment. It’s a massive turnaround over the past two years. In soccer, it isn’t defense that wins games or offense — it’s the midfield. This is where Mancini has made the most tactical impact. Mancini’s midfield renaissance has taken place around the trio of Jorginho, Marco Verratti and Nicolo Barella under Mancini’s attack-minded 4-3-3 since taking over last year.

It should come as some surprise that this trio doesn’t hail from any of Italy’s top clubs. Verratti plays for Paris Saint-Germain in France, while Jorginho, after years at Napoli, is now at Chelsea. Barella played in Italy and until recently for Cagliari, not one of the country’s traditionally strong clubs. He is currently on loan at Inter Milan. All three of these players need to remain healthy this season if Italy want to make a go of it at the Euros this coming summer.

The strong midfield made all the difference against Greece. Verratti was the best player on the team, while Jorginho’s goal, Italy’s first of the game, on a penalty kick paved the way for another win. Even Barella, who had a slow start to the game, grew in his intensity as the match moved on.

The strong midfield has made up for the lack of great strikers. It’s true that Italy have Lorenzo Insigne, Ciro Immobile and Andrea Belotti have been too inconsistent under Mancini. They had been under the ill-fated Gianpiero Ventura era, something that has only been fixed by the creative and offensive midfield.

Italy are 7-0 in European qualifying and clinched a spot in the finals with three matchdays left. That will allow for Mancini to test his bench players ahead of the 24-nation tournament that start on June 12 and runs for four weeks. The championship game is set for July 12 at London’s Wembley Stadium.

Qualifying is one thing, the finals will be another. The likes of Finland and Armenia are relatively easy foes. The Euros will feature the world’s best national teams (minus Brazil and Argentina) and that means having to tangle with the likes of France, the defending world champions, Portugal, the defending European champions, Belgium, the top team in the world in the current FIFA rankings, and England, fourth-place finishers at Russia 2018.

Unless Mancini can find that key striker (Mario Balotelli, anyone?), this is an Italian side that has gotten stronger, but is limited offensively. The defense is strong, a quality Italy has traditionally had, but it’s the midfield that will be looked on to propel this team. Confidence is high among Mancini’s players. They’ll need it if they want to lift the trophy come July.