Accused Of Money, What Is Roberto Mancini's Motivation Of Training The Saudi Arabian National Team?

Roberto Mancini chose to be the coach of the Saudi Arabian national team. (Photo: Twitter/@SaudiNT)

JAKARTA - Roberto Mancini's surprising decision was taken. Two weeks after placing his post as coach of the Italian national team, he officially coached the Saudi Arabian squad.

Mancini is said to have received a three-year contract worth more than 25 million dollars (around Rp. 381 billion) per year to join Saudi Arabia. The money-seeking label was assigned to the former Inter Milan and Lazio coaches.

The legendary Italian coach, Claudio Ranieri, was among those who satirized Mancini's decision. He admitted that he would not do the same with his colleague.

"I honestly wouldn't do that. I prefer to have motivation over money," Ranieri told DAZN.

Roberto Mancini himself said the goal was to coach the Saudi Arabia national team. He hopes to lead The Green Falcons to win the Asian Cup.

"Our target is to try to win the Asian Cup after 27 years. We have four months. We have friendly matches. We have two matches for (qualification) the World Cup and after that we have 20 days to prepare for the Asian Cup," Mancini said as quoted by AFP via Antara.

"We know that there are a lot of top teams like Japan, like Australia, like Korea (South Korea). But I'm sure that we will go there, and we will try to win it," he added.

Building a strong national team looks like an important step for the transformation of Saudi Arabia's football, which is part of their ambitious plans to reshape the image of an ultra conservative country that depends heavily on oil exports.

Saudi Arabia occupies its 54th position in the FIFA world rankings, well below other top Asian teams. Saudi Arabia's women's national team, which only played its first game last year, took 172th place out of 186 countries.