Roberto Mancini
Roberto Mancini is an Italian football manager and former player. He is currently the head coach of Qatar Stars League club Al-Sadd.
As a player, Mancini operated as a deep-lying forward, and was best known for his time at Sampdoria, where he played more than 550 matches, and helped the team win their first Serie A league title, four Coppa Italia titles, and the European Cup Winners' Cup. He was capped 36 times for Italy, taking part at UEFA Euro 1988 and the 1990 FIFA World Cup, achieving semi-final finishes in both tournaments, although he was never put onto the pitch during the 1990 tournament. In 1997, after 15 years at Sampdoria, Mancini left the club to join Lazio, where he won a further scudetto and Cup Winners' Cup, in addition to the UEFA Super Cup and two more Coppa Italia titles. Alongside Gianluigi Buffon, he is the player with the most Coppa Italia titles. As a player, Mancini would often give team talks at half-time. Towards the end of his playing career he became an assistant to Sven-Göran Eriksson at Lazio.
His first manager role was at Fiorentina in 2001, at only 36 years old, winning a Coppa Italia title. The following season, he took over as manager at Lazio, where he guided the club to another Coppa Italia title. In 2004, Mancini was offered the manager's job at Inter Milan, with which he won three consecutive Serie A titles, a club record; he was dismissed in 2008. After being out of football for over a year, Mancini was appointed Manchester City manager in December 2009. He helped City win the FA Cup in the 2010–11 season, the club's first major trophy in 35 years, and their first league title in 44 years in the 2011–12 season. Mancini took over managerial duties at Turkish club Galatasaray in September 2013, winning the Turkish Cup in his only season at the club, before returning to Inter Milan for two more years before managing Russian side Zenit. In 2018, he took charge of the Italy national football team after the team had failed to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. In 2021, Mancini guided Italy to their second-ever European Championship at Euro 2020. Under his management, the team was unbeaten from October 2018 to October 2021, and holds the world record for most consecutive matches without defeat, but Italy then failed to reach the World Cup for the second time in a row after a play-off loss to North Macedonia.
Mancini has reached at least a semi-final of a major national cup competition in every season he has been a manager, from 2002 to 2014. He holds a number of records, including most consecutive Coppa Italia finals from 2004 to 2008, with Lazio once in 2004 and with Inter Milan in the following four seasons.
Early life
Mancini was born in Jesi, Marche, Italy, on 27 November 1964, but then moved onto the mountain town of Roccadaspide in Campania and was raised by Aldo and Marianna Mancini along with his younger sister Stephanie. He had served as an altar boy in his youth. In 2012, Mancini made a religious pilgrimage to the site of Our Lady of Medugorje and had stated that he is a believer who prays regularly, "The world would be a better place if everyone practiced the art of praying."Club career
Sampdoria
Mancini debuted in Serie A for Bologna in 1981. The following year, he was bought by Sampdoria, for £2.2 million, whom he played for until 1997. With Sampdoria, he formed a dynamic strike partnership with Gianluca Vialli under manager Vujadin Boškov, which earned the pair the nickname The Goal Twins. Together, they helped the club to its only league title in 1991, four Coppa Italias and a Cup Winners' Cup in 1990. He also appeared in the final of the 1991–92 European Cup against Barcelona. At 27, Mancini sat on the interview panel that selected Sven-Göran Eriksson as manager. Mancini often delivered the team-talk for Sampdoria. He attended board meetings and had a say in transfer business. In David Platt's 1995 autobiography, Achieving the Goal, he described the day he met Sampdoria in Genoa while playing for Bari and, lining up in the tunnel, became aware that Mancini was looking his way. Platt wrote: "I thought nothing of it until he asked me, very matter-of-factly, if I was staying at Bari. Outright he asked if I wanted to join Sampdoria. Mancini had been at the club years and was almost a son to the president, Paolo Mantovani". Mancini kept in touch when Platt moved to Juventus and eventually helped bring him to Sampdoria. At that stage, Mancini had established himself as the most powerful voice in the Blucerchiati dressing room.As a teenager at Sampdoria, Mancini was not someone who liked his authority being questioned. After Trevor Francis signed from Manchester City in 1982, aggrieved that his place was under threat, the 18-year-old Mancini ended up picking a fight with 28-year-old Francis on the training ground. A similar incident occurred with Liam Brady, who was eight years older. Additionally, Juan Sebastián Verón tells the story of swearing in Mancini's direction during an argument about a badly-taken corner. After the match, Mancini had stripped off to the waist and was waiting to fight him. "He is not an easy person, you know," Verón says. "He has this complicated personality".
Lazio
With Lazio, Mancini won his second scudetto and Cup Winners' Cup titles, as well as two more Coppa Italias. In the 1999–00 season, Lazio won the scudetto and Coppa Italia, but Mancini failed to score in 20 matches and later announced his playing retirement. He joined Lazio's coaching staff as Sven-Göran Eriksson's number two. In 2011, when asked about Mancini, Eriksson said: "I took him to Lazio with me and he wanted to be a manager even while he was a player. He was the coach, he was the kit man, he was the bus driver, everything. At Sampdoria he wanted to check that everything was in place before training. Sometimes I would have to tell him: 'Mancio, you have a game to play on Sunday, you will be exhausted if you have to control everything.' But he was like that."He is a Lazio Legend and will always be remembered.Leicester City
Joining Leicester City on loan in January 2001, Mancini made his Premier League debut against Arsenal at the age of 36, but failed to complete a full 90 minutes in his five appearances for the club. In early February, he was given leave of absence, citing personal reasons. He telephoned the club on 14 February, however, and informed them he would not be returning to England; he had been offered the manager's job at Fiorentina. Despite this, he cites his time at Leicester City as the period during which he fell in love with the English game, and which later prompted him to accept the job at Manchester City.International career
Despite success at club level, Mancini never became a regular for Italy. At the under-21 level, Mancini was part of the team which reached the semi-finals in the 1984 UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship and finished runners-up in 1986. He made his international senior squad debut at the age of 19, under Enzo Bearzot, on 26 May 1984, in a 2–0 away win against Canada in Toronto; he later won 36 caps, and scored four goals for his country. Mancini was a starting player at Euro 1988, where Italy reached the semi-finals; during the tournament, he scored a goal in a 1–1 draw against hosts West Germany, in the opening match of the tournament on 10 June. Mancini was also a non-playing member of Azeglio Vicini's Italian squad that finished in third place at the 1990 World Cup on home soil. He was kept out of the side by competition from Gianluca Vialli, Salvatore Schillaci, Andrea Carnevale and Roberto Baggio.Mancini's international career ended after a dispute with national team coach Arrigo Sacchi, when Mancini was upset because he would not be guaranteed a first team place at the 1994 World Cup. Fierce competition with other creative forwards for places in the starting line-up, such as Gianfranco Zola, Giuseppe Signori, Roberto Baggio and later Francesco Totti and Alessandro Del Piero, hindered his international opportunities, hastening his self-imposed exile from the Italy national team.