The last few years, the famous Italian football manager Roberto Mancini has often been criticized by sports experts. And I must say, not unreasonably. The Italian received an almost bottomless budget and unlimited opportunities at Manchester City, but failed to please the club's bosses and thousands of blue moon fans with a triumph in the Champions League. On the other hand, if we evaluate Mancini's coaching career as a whole, then, for sure, he will enter the top 3 of the most titled of his compatriots.
Player Career
Roberto Mancini is a graduate of the Bologna club from the north of Italy, where he also took his first steps in professional football, playing mainly in the position of a right forward. The striker managed to score nine times already in his first season, which attracted the interest of Sampdoria, which occupied a leading position in the Italian Serie A at the end of the last century. As part of the Blucherchiati, Roberto made up a powerful attacking duet with another Italian footballer, Gianluca Vialli.
Total forFifteen seasons in a blue and white T-shirt, Mancini spent about five hundred matches and became the champion of Italy with the team. He also won four national Cups, the Super Cup and the European Cup Winners' Cup. The Italian striker was one of those who created a formidable reputation for that Sampdoria in European battles. Needless to say, for a decade and a half, the main idol of Luigi Ferraris was precisely Roberto Mancini. A photo of a player with titles won can still be found today in the club museum of the club from Genoa.
At the end of his career as a player, the striker managed to play for three years in Rome's Lazio (with whom, by the way, he won six titles, including the Cup Winners' Cup) and even played five games in the English Premier League as part of Leicester.
Coaching
Before being a Lazio player, Roberto Mancini, thanks to his vast experience, often acted as an assistant to the head coach of the Romans, Sven-Göran Eriksson. It is not surprising that in 2000 the ex-forward of the Blues headed one of the clubs in Serie A - Fiorentina. The first pancake, as usual, turned out to be lumpy, and after only a few months the coach left Florence. Things went a little better for the young specialist in his native Lazio. Roberto won the Coppa Italia with the team, but soon also had to leave the capital club due to financial troubles and scandals related to the activities of the president.
From 2004 to 2008, Mancini led Inter Milan, with whom he achieved very good success on the domesticarena. The Italian mentor became the champion of the country three times and triumphed in the national Cup two more times. Later (in 2014), Roberto signed a contract with the Nerazzurri for two more seasons, but not only failed to win anything with the team, but also showed uninteresting, inconsequential football.
Cadres decide everything
Mancini's main achievement during his management of the Milan team is rightfully considered not to be won titles (although the Italian was very successful in this aspect), but the ability to get a potentially strong player into the team for relatively little money or even for free. For four years, Hernan Crespo, Dejan Stankovic, Julio Cesar and Esteban Cambiasso came to the club, and it is very difficult to overestimate the merit of Roberto Mancini in these transfers. Even the odious Jose Mourinho, who won the Champions League with the Nerazzurri in 2010, used the model of his Inter.
To Manchester City
At the end of the first decade of the new century, another financial project appeared in football England, built on Arab capital, called Manchester City. Roberto Mancini was invited to drive the new “car”, with whom the club signed a contract for 3.5 years.
The Italian continued to show miracles of football instinct in Foggy Albion, otherwise how can one explain that Yaya Toure, David Silva and the current attack leader Sergio Aguero appeared in the team with his arrival? By the way, it is this trinity that makes up the backbone of the "blue moon" to this day.
In Manchester, the Italian spent four years and left about himselfmixed memories. On the one hand, after several decades, he returned the titles to the club and played spectacular and effective football. On the other hand, by investing fabulous sums in the development of City, the Arab sheiks probably intended to win the main European tournament - the Champions League, but the Italian did not manage to do this.
Roberto Mancini: tactics and strategies
The Italian mentor is the most experimental in terms of confrontation and the use of various tactics. English journalists have been forced to "scratch their heads" more than once, having recognized the starting line-up for the upcoming match and noted that Mancini's actions often cause them bewilderment. However, according to the same writing fraternity, such a strategy is also the trump card of the Italian specialist, because compared to the more pragmatic Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho, Mancini's Manchester City showed bright and attacking football, which the audience likes so much and which is so unusual coaches from the Apennines.
