Roberto Mancini sheds light on his failure to join Juventus

Roberto Mancini spoke at the workshop ‘The jurist enters the field’ as part of the Academic Gym with Guglielmo Stendardo at LUISS: “My future? Let&#8217s see what will come, in soccer everything can change overnight. You have to know how to choose”.

“Everyone affects their team, then sometimes results come or go. If things don&#8217t work out, it&#8217s right to take some blame as well. But you have to give time to make an impact. In Italy if things don&#8217t go the coach is immediately questioned. A manager must have a vision, be empathetic to the club and be able to transfer his thinking. But I think if you bet on a coach you have to give him time and support. Managers also need a vision, from the sporting director he is expected to buy players. No one can win all the time, but when you lose I think it is important to get back up right away”.

“I have been working in England for four years and getting to win by making a good run I think is the best thing. Manchester City asked me to win the Premier after five years, I won it after three and then things got even better. Italian coaches were and still are way ahead, but in the end if you have strong players you win otherwise not”.

“We had decades of incredible players, now it is a few years that there are fewer. Too many foreigners? In our time they were champions and improved young people, if you take foreigners who are worth little better to give an’opportunity to young Italians”. Inevitable a passage on his experience as coach, embellished by an incredible European Championship won: “The national team for a coach is the most important thing, it represents the culmination of the career as well as an extraordinary moment. The European Championship was an incredible thing, we knew we weren&#8217t the strongest but it wasn&#8217t just that month there, it was a journey that lasted 3 or 4 years. I said it as soon as I arrived that we had to win it, slowly everyone started to believe it. World Cup first to us or to Arabia? I hope Italy wins it first. We have a soccer culture that is not even comparable, we have been living on soccer since forever”.