Mancini\u2019s former colleague and friend has had his say on the manager\u2019s possible return to the Italy bench<\/p>\n
Among the candidates for the national team manager\u2019s role following Gattuso\u2019s departure is Roberto Mancini, for whom this would mark a return to the Azzurri after his spell from 2018 to 2023, during which the 2021 European Championship victory remains an unforgettable highlight. That coaching staff included his friend Attilio Lombardo, then assistant manager and now Sampdoria\u2019s head coach, having previously served as Evani\u2019s assistant from April to June, securing survival via the play-offs, before joining Gregucci\u2019s staff at Sampdoria last November and taking charge of the team a month ago.<\/p>\n
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LOMBARDO’S WORDS<\/p>\n
Lombardo spoke about Mancini\u2019s possible return to the Italy bench during the pre-match press conference ahead of the game against Empoli: \u201cNo one expected us to miss out on the World Cup for the third time in a row; I\u2019m very sorry about that. I believe that the current state of Italian football is holding others back; we have far too few talented young players who are regulars in Serie A and Serie B. I hope Mancini can return to the national team, because I believe he has a debt to repay: I know he\u2019d like to return to the Azzurri, just as he\u2019d like to return to Sampdoria.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mancini\u2019s former colleague and friend has had his say on the manager\u2019s possible return to the Italy bench…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2928,5,2201],"class_list":{"0":"post-3784","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-italy","8":"tag-attilio-lombardo","9":"tag-italy","10":"tag-mancini"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}