Lele Adani slams Roberto Mancini’s Italy: “If we keep playing like this, we’ve already lost”

The 0-2 loss to Belgium once again highlighted the struggles of the Azzurri, who appeared in Rome last night to be far from the team they were when Luciano Spalletti was head coach. And among the harshest critics of Roberto Mancini’s new regime’s debut is Daniele Adani. “If we keep playing like this, trying to measure up to the many teams competing in the World Cup, we’ve already lost,” was the harsh assessment from the former Fiorentina and Inter defender, speaking live on Rai channels. “We’re searching for something that others already have; we’re giving new young players their debuts, and they’re already doing that. They’re ahead of us in many ways. We can try to spin it however we like, but we’re the only national team in the top 20 of the rankings that isn’t participating in the World Cup.”

Even Mancini himself, in his post-match comments, didn’t hide behind excuses and effectively agreed with those who booed at the Olimpico. “The boos are understandable. When you lose, they seem pretty normal to me,” the head coach admitted to ‘Sky Sport’. “We just have to get to work. We know we’ll face more difficult matches like tonight’s, but we have to keep doing our job without letting it get us down,” he added, before analyzing the evening’s events: “In the first half, Belgium played better than us and made us suffer; at the start of the second half, we played well for 25 minutes and then conceded the second goal. That’s when the game was over. There’s still time; we have five games left to play, and we’ll try to win them. We’ll see how it goes.”

The game’s pattern repeated itself exactly in both halves, with two individual errors handing Belgium the two decisive counterattacks. The visitors’ opening goal in the 21st minute came after Kevin De Bruyne stripped the ball from Alessandro Romano’s feet, followed by a through ball to Mika Godts. Dodi Lukebakio’s second goal in the 69th minute, on the other hand, capitalized on a lapse by Nicolò Barella in the opponent’s attacking third and his teammates’ failure to track back. In between, the Azzurri had missed three clear chances to equalize through Kean, Gianluca Mancini, and Pio Esposito, before the head coach made a triple substitution, bringing on Scalvini, Frattesi, and Maldini for Coppola, Romano, and Pio Esposito.

The numbers make the defeat even more bitter, mercilessly highlighting the Azzurri’s decline. In fact, Belgium hadn’t beaten Italy since November 13, 2015, when—with Antonio Conte on the bench—the Red Devils won 3-1 in Brussels: on that occasion, Kevin De Bruyne—among others—scored, and eleven years later, he caused Alessandro Romano enormous trouble. Since then, the Azzurri had remained unbeaten in six consecutive matches against the Belgians, including victories at Euro 2016 and Euro 2020—the latter campaign culminating in the European Championship title under Mancini’s first tenure. Tonight’s defeat is therefore the first in eleven years against an opponent that historically struggled to beat Italy: the Belgians now have five wins in 27 head-to-head matches, compared to Italy’s 17.

The result weighs even heavier in light of the goals Mancini set out when he returned to the Azzurri bench. “Regarding the decision made years ago, I’ll have to do well to win back the Azzurri fans who were angry or felt betrayed,” the coach himself admitted at a press conference in recent days. That goal became immediately harder to achieve following the evening’s match at the Olimpico, with part of the Roman crowd leaving the stands as early as a quarter of an hour before the final whistle. Now the schedule leaves no room for maneuver: following this defeat, Italy will face Turkey twice before wrapping up the first block of matches with a challenging away game in Saint-Denis against Zinedine Zidane’s France. In League A Group 1, the minimum goal remains securing one of the top two spots to advance to the quarterfinals scheduled for March 2027, but the road has already become an uphill battle after just ninety minutes.