Rome (AFP) – Giampiero Ventura takes over as Italy head coach after Euro 2016 as the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) opted Tuesday for a low-key manager, radically different from Antonio Conte for the 2018 World Cup qualifying campaign.
The 68-year-old former Torino coach’s anticipated appointment was confirmed by FIGC president Carlo Tavecchio after a meeting of the body’s federal council.
“I stuck to my original decision which I reached a few months ago. I chose Ventura because he’s a footballing scholar and he has taught many coaches his innovative methods,” Tavecchio told a press conference.
“He’s coached lots of players who went on to play for Italy, he has huge experience in coaching young players and I believe that he has always had a strong sense of loyalty.”
Ventura will replace Conte, 48, who heads for English Premier League giants Chelsea next season, after the European Championships in France from June 10-July 10.
With Ventura, the Italian federation are taking a totally different direction, having failed to get past the group stages at the last two World Cups.
Conte was appointed following the failed 2014 World Cup campaign, and heads to Chelsea following a period which saw him at loggerheads with Italian league clubs and a difficult time for the national team.
A former international, and three-time Serie A winner with Juventus, Conte represented a certain dynamism and a new generation of Italian coaches.
Ventura, who has signed a two year deal, has a less impressive coaching CV in his three decades as a manager.
A modest player in the third division, Ventura’s coaching portfolio is equally low-key, with no Champions League experience, and having only competed in the Europa League in 2013-2014 with Torino, reaching the last 16.
He joined Torino in 2012, after several forays into Serie A with Cagliari (1998-1999), Sampdoria (2001-2002), Messina (2005-2006) and Bari (2009-2011).
Torino finished 12th in Serie A last season.
– Lippi on stand-by –
The choice of Ventura, a respected coach but almost unknown outside of Italy, confirms that the Italian team, four-time world champions, most recently in 2006, no longer attracts the big name managers.
Italy’s star coaches — Massimiliano Allegri (Juventus), Carlo Ancelotti (Bayern Munich), Claudio Ranieri (Leicester), Roberto Mancini (Inter Milan) or Luciano Spalletti (AS Roma) — were never considered as possible candidates.
Other names touted included Roberto Donadoni, a former Italy coach now with Serie A side Bologna; Gianni De Biasi, the Albania coach or Sampdoria’s Vincenzo Montella.
Instead Italian football bosses have gone for a more down-to-earth choice, with Ventura on good terms will everyone in Italian football, although his debonair air conceals a hot temper, as when he made a throat-cutting move when a Torino fan insulted one of his players.
But Ventura had almost certainly fewer demands than other coaches as Italy prepare for a 2018 World Cup qualifying campaign in a difficult group which includes Spain.
At his side, the federation is hoping to appoint Marcello Lippi, who led Italy to the 2006 world title, and a close friend of Ventura’s since they were teenagers, as supervisor of all the Italian teams.
But according to Italian sports media, that project is currently blocked by a conflict of interest as Lippi’s son Davide is an agent for players including Juventus and international defender Giorgio Chiellini.
Tavecchio added that Ventura’s appointment was part of a new rebuilding project.
“Appointing the new manager is the first step in a project to strengthen, specialise and professionalise Club Italia.”
The Azzurri kick off Euro 2016 against Belgium in Lyon on June 13, with further Group E games against Sweden on June 17 in Toulouse and the Republic of Ireland on June 22 in Lille.
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