will take charge of the Azzurri<\/a> for the June friendlies, with a new coach set to take over after the election of the new FIGC President on June 22.<\/p>\nSome Italian pundits, including ex-Italian defender Daniele Adani, have claimed that the FIGC should try to hire Guardiola, but Di Canio disagreed: \u201cWe need someone like Conte, who already knows what we are talking about,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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Di Canio went on to say that issues with Italian football do not only lie on the pitch: \u201cTo begin with, we in the media are not doing our job properly,\u201d he argued.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany are obsessed with self-promotion and comment to end up on social media, forgetting that we\u2019re gasping at the bottom.\u201d<\/p>\n
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ZENICA, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA \u2013 MARCH 31: Gianluigi Donnarumma of Italy reacts after the FIFA World Cup 2026 European Qualifiers KO play-offs match between Bosnia & Herzegovina and Italy at Stadion Bilino Polje on March 31, 2026 in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. (Photo by Getty Images\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Italy captain Gigio Donnarumma, a Euro 2020 winner, left Milan on a free transfer nearly five years ago to join PSG. Last summer, he signed for Manchester City.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s about money, plain and simple. Legitimate, of course, and I don\u2019t criticise him,\u201d said Di Canio.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Italy, he would have had to halve his salary to play for a non-competitive team. For me, he\u2019s very, very strong, but sometimes he makes mistakes like an average player, mistakes Buffon made once every three years. At certain clubs, one blunder in the wrong match cancels out ten miracles.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Paolo Di Canio<\/p>\n
There are plenty of rumours linking Tonali with a move away from Newcastle this season. Which Serie A team would suit him better?<\/p>\n
\u201cInter, who already have a true playmaker,\u201d Di Canio replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s by far our best outfield player, but where does he play? In the tenth-placed team in the English league.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Lastly, the ex-Juventus, Milan and Lazio striker spoke about Federico Chiesa\u2019s lack of playing time at Liverpool and how that reflects the difference between Serie A and the Premier League: \u201cIf he came back to Italy, it would take a couple of sprints, and we\u2019d be saying: \u2018My God, why wasn\u2019t he playing at Liverpool?\u2019 Simple, because the Premier League is like the NBA, and we are Italian basketball. Malen at Aston Villa was the third backup; at Roma, he looks like an alien. Lautaro scores against Pisa and Lecce, and I hear people say he\u2019s like Kane; 49 goals across all competitions. How can you even say that?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former striker Paolo Di Canio argues that Italy need Antonio Conte even more than Pep Guardiola, says Sandro…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3992,61,1643,2165,4539,1892,694,2364,44,1013,5,3421,237,1895,287,590,175,2543,4540,794],"class_list":{"0":"post-6004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-italy","8":"tag-aston-villa","9":"tag-bosnia-and-herzegovina","10":"tag-buffon","11":"tag-conte","12":"tag-di-canio","13":"tag-federico-chiesa","14":"tag-gianluigi-donnarumma","15":"tag-guardiola","16":"tag-inter","17":"tag-italian-football","18":"tag-italy","19":"tag-lautaro","20":"tag-lazio","21":"tag-lecce","22":"tag-liverpool","23":"tag-manchester-city","24":"tag-milan","25":"tag-pisa","26":"tag-psg","27":"tag-tonali"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6004","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=6004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}