Roberto Mancini has been candid about where Italian football currently stands, conceding the talent pool no longer compares to the generation that carried the Azzurri two decades ago.
With quotes via Gianluca Di Marzio, the coach was speaking at his pre-match press conference before Monday’s trip to face Vincenzo Montella’s Turkiye in Bursa.
“Every team goes through different cycles, and at this moment Italy find themselves in a phase of renewal,” Mancini said. “We don’t have a generation like that of Totti, Del Piero and other great champions of the past.”
His central request was patience, which is a difficult thing to ask for three days after a home defeat that drew boos at the Olimpico.
“Above all we need time to work, to get to know each other and to build a team that can be competitive. We don’t need anything else.”
He was also realistic about what can change before kick-off, with barely 48 hours between matches.
“I expect the team can put in a good performance against Turkiye, improving the pressing and the aggression. In these days we haven’t had time to prepare anything new, so I’m not expecting any great novelties.”
Moise Kean’s involvement remains uncertain. “I don’t know if he’ll play, I’ll decide tomorrow morning. Only 48 hours have passed since the last game and we still have to train today. He hasn’t played much so far this season, so we’ll see how he is.”
With four fixtures inside eleven days, wholesale rotation was always likely.
“In terms of personnel we will definitely change, it is impossible to have one player available for four games this close together,” he said. “We can also assess other players in matches this important.”
That points to opportunities for those who watched from the bench at the Olimpico, and possibly a first start for one of the uncapped contingent. Mancini named nine players without a senior cap in his squad, and two of them, Issa Doumbia and Mohamed Ali Zoma, were introduced late on Friday with the game already lost.
He was unmoved by criticism of Alessandro Romano, handed a debut in central midfield and overwhelmed by Kevin De Bruyne.
“It doesn’t affect me. I think Romano had a very good game. Mistakes happen to everyone, including more experienced players. We are happy with his debut against Belgium.”
The trip to Turkiye brings a reunion with Vincenzo Montella, his forward line partner at Sampdoria in the 1990s, and Mancini expects a difficult evening.
“A strong Turkiye, full of talented players. They always have been, and now even more so. Despite going out of the World Cup in the group, they did not deserve to. It will definitely be a hard game.”
Asked about their playing days together, he was warm. “The important thing is still being here, at this level. Despite his physical build, he wasn’t huge, he was extremely quick, extremely good, and he had a sense for goal like few others.”
Italy sit bottom of Group A1 and need a result to avoid a difficult trip to Paris becoming a defining one.