Popular candidate for Italy s new coach: Ranieri approaches the Blues

According to Turin Sports, the Italian Football Association intends to appoint Claudio Ranieri as the new head coach of the Italian national team to replace the outgoing Luciano Spaletti. Although Ranieri initially declined the invitation, the Italian Football Association did not give up and continued to actively lobby the 73-year-old coach to take over the coaching staff.

Currently, Ranieri is negotiating with Serie A club Roma on his role as an adviser. Faced with an invitation from the national team, the coach who once led Leicester City to win the championship is seriously considering whether to play both positions - both in Rome and coach the Italian team.

Italian Football Association Chairman Gabriel Gravina personally came forward to promote the matter and proposed a short-term contract proposal to Ranieri with a clear goal: to help the Italian team successfully advance to the 2026 US-Canada-Mexico World Cup.

If Ranieri ultimately rejects this appointment, former AC Milan coach Stefano Pioli will become the first choice replacement. Pioli left the Saudi league after the end of last season and has not yet confirmed the next one. He is considering a three-year contract with an annual salary of 3 million euros from Florence.

Italy missed the World Cup in a row, and the pressure was huge

In recent years, the Italian national team has fallen into a trough and has missed the World Cup finals twice in a row. This embarrassing record puts the Italian Football Association under tremendous public pressure. Therefore, Gravena chose to invite the experienced Ranieri to come out in the hope of using his stable coaching style and rich competition experience to ensure that the Blues successfully get the ticket to the 2026 World Cup.

In a World Cup qualifier that ended in the early morning of June 10 local time, Italy defeated Moldova 2-0 at home. This game is also the last game for Spaletti to coach the national team. He confirmed at a pre-match press conference that this will be his curtain call.

After this game, Italy achieved 2 wins, 1 loss and 3 points in the group, temporarily lagging behind the leaders Norway (12 points in all wins in four games) and Israel (2 wins in three games) Next, Italy will usher in a key battle against Estonia and Israel in September, and these two games will directly affect whether they can retain hope of entering the World Cup.