Roberto Mancini does not intend to stay on Italy’s bench past the 2022 World Cup in Qatar as he plans to return at the helm of a team, he told TV show Tiki Taka: “Contracts can be broken or extended at any time. We will soon partecipate to the European Championship and we will host the Nations League final four. We will have to qualify for the World Cup first, which should not be taken for granted considered what happened the last time. So we have three important competitions coming up in the span of two years and we would certainly like to play them all. After those, I will certain leave to go back to managing a club.”
He added: “National teams have only a handful of matches on the schedule and after a while you grow tired of staying at home and that is an issue. It is a great honor to have this job, especially at this time when the squad has resumed being competitive.”
Mancini looked back at his tenure: “We were 21st in the worldwide ranking when I took over, now we are tenth overall and sixth in Europe. We have done very well in these 18 months, we climbed our way back and we can still go up because Italy deserves a lot more. It was important to find the right youngsters to start building the future and mixing them with our veterans. We have been lucky to identify good players that were looking to establish themselves, did not want to miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime and are constantly improving.”
He finished off by indicating some possible successors: “There are many capable coaches that could do it, for instance Massimiliano Allegri, Carlo Ancelotti and Gian Piero Gasperini.”