Roberto Mancini has urged Italy to banish the memory of Bosnia-Herzegovina when they face Belgium in their UEFA Nations League clash at the Stadio Olimpico.
Friday’s game in Rome is the first of Italy’s Group A1 campaign in an international break which also sees them come up against France and Türkiye.
It is also their first match with head coach Mancini back at the helm, and their first competitive outing since the penalty shootout defeat by Bosnia that cost them a place at this summer’s World Cup.
“These have been two important training days,” said Mancini at his pre-match news conference. “We hope to make the right choices, the lads are ready.
“Tomorrow will be exciting as always, we hope to start well. We must immediately look beyond Bosnia.”
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This is Mancini’s second spell in charge after being appointed in July to replace Gennaro Gattuso, who stepped down from the role in April following the playoff failure.
Previously, Mancini managed the Azzurri between 2018 and 2023, where he guided them to European Championship glory over England in the 2021 final, but was unable to secure qualification for the 2022 World Cup.
Goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma said the fallout to their latest failure has been difficult to process.
“They have been very tough days, I find it hard to talk about it,” he said, “It was a strange and very long summer, but we have to start again.
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“We have a great desire, a new cycle is beginning, and tomorrow it’s up to us to give the fans that spark to fall in love with the Azzurri shirt.
“Have we talked about Bosnia? Zero. Only two minutes today, but there was no desire. The pain was too great to reopen that discussion.
“Our goal is to build a great national team, and Mancini will give us a big hand in this. We want to be proactive, aggressive and dictate play. We will face strong teams, but our idea is to be proactive.”
There will also be a new face on the Belgium bench, with Dutchman Mark van Bommel having replaced Rudi Garcia following their run to the World Cup quarterfinals.
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“It’s not easy to prepare the team in four days,” the former AC Milan midfielder told Sky Sport Italia.
“We had some meetings with the players to explain what we want to do. We want the ball, and if we lose it, to win it back as soon as possible. We want to dominate the game, but it’s not easy when starting a new era.
“We’re in the Nations League against Italy, France and Türkiye, so there’s no time to experiment, but Italy are in the same situation as us.”
Information from PA contributed to this report.
