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Roberto Mancini is no longer the coach of the national football team of Saudi Arabia: the Saudi Federation announced this in a note, talking about a joint agreement that provides for the “termination of the contractual relationship”. Mancini left the post after more than a year and at a time when he did not have particularly positive results: in the last four matches of the qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup, Saudi Arabia won only once and is now third in standings that are equal. points with Australia and Bahrain in group C.
There was much talk in Italy about Mancini’s choice to go and coach in Saudi Arabia: his resignation, on August 13, 2023, was unexpected and did not come a year before the start of the European Championships, with two games to go. played the following September and a few days after his appointment as manager of the Under 21 and Under 20 national teams. in. Saudi Arabia, with a salary of ten million euros a year: at that time, in fact, some football teams from Saudi Arabia, a country with very little football tradition, were convinced many important players and coaches to move from Europe by offering them a lot of money.
However, Mancini attributed his resignation to the essence of a bad relationship with Gabriele Gravina, the president of the Italian football federation, the FIGC, and the fact that Gravina decided to appoint a new staff, which sent a group of historical collaborators in that Mancini did not want him to leave.
However, at the end of August, he confirmed that he will indeed go to coach in Saudi Arabia.
Before this latest assignment, Mancini was the coach of the Italian national team from May 2018 to August 2023. In 2021 he won the European Championships, but the following year he failed to get qualification for 2022 World Cup.
Mancini was one of the most famous football players in Italy in the 1990s, especially with Sampdoria and Lazio, where he won the Scudetto in 1991 and 2000, as a coach, he won three Scudetti (all with Inter) , four Italian Cups. the English Premier League with Manchester City and a Turkish Cup with Galatasaray.