ROME: Luciano Spalletti, former coach of Napoli, has been appointed as new national coach of Italy by the federation after the unexpected resignation of Roberto Mancini last Sunday, less than a year before the start of Euro 2024.

An FIGC statement said: “The Italian Football Federation announces that it has reached an agreement with Luciano Spalletti for the position of coach of the Italian national team.

“The Tuscan coach will assume his position from September 1, 2023 and the official presentation will take place on the occasion of the Azzurri meeting, scheduled for the first days of September, at the Federal Technical Center of Coverciano.”

Spalleti has signed a contract for the next three years, until 2026.

Neither the coach nor the federation have paid Napoli a contract release clause of €3.2m.

Spalletti, who was always the FIGC’s first choice, thus begins a new stage after the success he achieved with Napoli whom he led to the third league title in their history, the first without Diego Armando Maradona.

Until last season Spalletti, born in Florence, seemed destined never to win a league title. He had to leave Italy, to coach Russia’s Zenit St Petersburg, to finally win one in 2010.

Before joining Napoli, Spalletti won two Italian Cups and an Italian Super Cup with Roma.

His first match in charge will be against North Macedonia – the team who knocked Mancini’s Italy out of the 2022 World Cup – on September 9, in a Euro 2024 qualifying match.

Spalletti takes charge less than a week after Mancini quit despite the World Cup qualifying failure. In addition he had been appointed recently as the general coordinator of the under-21 and under-20 teams.

Mancini’s Italy played 61 games, with 39 wins, 13 draws and 9 defeats.

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