Surprise, Guardiola is the candidate for the Italian coach to replace Gattuso

JAKARTA - The idea of bringing a coach from outside Italy to handle the national team has emerged. Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has been called to replace Gennaro Gattuso as Italy's national team coach.

Many Italian coaching candidates followed the failure to qualify for the 2026 World Cup. More ironically, Italy extinguished the dream of playing in the World Cup for the third time in a row after being eliminated by the underestimated team, Bosnia Herzegovina.

Bosnia itself only emerged in 1992 because it was previously a part of Yugoslavia. In the early 1990s, Italy had already been wandering around the world football stage. They have been three times world champions and in the 1990 World Cup held in their own country, Italy ranked third.

Even though they took third place after being eliminated by Argentina in the semifinals, Italy failed to qualify for the 1992 European Cup. The situation is almost similar when Italy made a pretty good achievement at the European Cup and even became champions at Euro 2020, but Gli Azzurri failed to qualify for the 2022 World Cup and this last edition held in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Gattuso who boasted that he would bring Italy to the final round when replacing Luciano Spalletti was finally hit by a stone. Italy lost to Norway in the qualifying round. When they had to play the playoffs, they had to admit Bosnia's advantage in the final through a penalty shootout drama.

Gattuso himself has been rumored to resign or possibly be dismissed by the FIGC, the Italian Football Federation for that failure. Then who will replace him? A number of candidates have been circulating.

Coach Antonio Conte, who is currently managing Napoli, is rumored to be returning to the national team. Another candidate is AC Milan coach Massimiliano Allegri. Former national team coach, Roberto Mancini, is also one of the candidates. Mancini, who now manages the Saudi Arabian club Al-Sadd, coached the national team from 2013 to 2023.

Mancini also led Italy to win Euro 2020 by defeating England in the final via a penalty shootout. According to Calciomercato, Mancini is one of the candidates because he has a close relationship with Giovanni Malago who is said to be the President of FIGC to replace Gabriele Gravina who resigned after Italy's failure to the 2026 World Cup.

But the surprise for the Italian coach candidate was none other than the emergence of Guardiola. The question is, the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich coach is clearly a Spaniard. If Guardiola is chosen, this is the antithesis of the Italian tradition that the national team must be trained from their own country.

In the history of Italian football, the national team has once been handled by a coach from outside, namely Helenio Herrera who is from Argentina.

Only, Herrera has long been settled in Italy by handling Serie A clubs. He achieved success as a coach for Inter Milan who led him to become the national team coach in 1966.

However, Herrera became a coach with Giulio Valcareggi who is an Italian. He also only spent one year managing Italy and accompanied the national team for four matches.

Guardiola himself is one of the candidates because he is rumored to be leaving Man City. Guardiola is also quite familiar with Serie A because he has defended Brescia and AS Roma. When playing at Brescia, he was able to lift the club's achievements with the Italian legend, Roberto Baggio.

Guardiola has strong support for his fluent Italian language skills. He also still regularly visits Italy as a tourist. Guardiola himself has expressed a desire to manage the national team. He has been said to be handling Spain and England, but the news is not true.

Guardiola's presence is indeed an antithesis. However, the world's elite teams have also begun to be handled by foreign coaches. Brazil is even handled by an Italian, Carlo Ancelotti, who has never been looked at by the FIGC. Ironically, Ancelotti was once a pillar of the Azzurri midfield and achieved success while managing AC Milan, Juventus, Chelsea to Real Madrid.

Not only Brazil, England is also handled by Thomas Tuchel from Germany. Argentina itself in its history has also chosen a foreign coach, Felipe Pascucci, in 1934. Interestingly, Pascucci is from Italy and is the only foreign coach for the Argentine national team.