Roberto Mancini

Roberto Mancini (born 27 November 1964) is an Italian football manager and former player.

He is the head coach of the Saudi Arabia national team.

As a player, Mancini operated as a deep-lying forward, and was best known for his time at Sampdoria, where he played more than 550 matches, and helped the team win the Serie A league title, four Coppa Italia titles, and the European Cup Winners' Cup.

Mancini was born in the small town of Iesi, Marche, on 27 November 1964, but then moved onto the mountain town of Roccadaspide and was raised by Aldo and Marianna Mancini along with his younger sister Stephanie.

He had served as an altar boy in his youth.

Mancini debuted in Serie A for Bologna in 1981.

After Trevor Francis signed from Manchester City in 1982, aggrieved that his place was under threat, the 18-year-old Mancini ended up picking a fight with 28-year-old Francis on the training ground.

A similar incident occurred with Liam Brady, who was eight years older.

Additionally, Juan Sebastián Verón tells the story of swearing in Mancini's direction during an argument about a badly-taken corner.

After the match, Mancini had stripped off to the waist and was waiting to fight him.

"He is not an easy person, you know," Verón says.

He was capped 36 times for Italy, taking part at UEFA Euro 1988 and the 1990 FIFA World Cup, achieving semi-final finishes in both tournaments, although he was never put onto the pitch during the 1990 tournament.

Together, they helped the club to its only league title in 1991, four Coppa Italias and a Cup Winners' Cup in 1990.

He also appeared in the final of the 1991–92 European Cup against Barcelona.

At 27, Mancini sat on the interview panel that selected Sven-Göran Eriksson as manager.

Mancini often delivered the team-talk for Sampdoria.

He attended board meetings and had a say in transfer business.

In David Platt's 1995 autobiography, Achieving the Goal, he described the day he met Sampdoria in Genoa while playing for Bari and, lining up in the tunnel, became aware that Mancini was looking his way.

Platt wrote: "I thought nothing of it until he asked me, very matter-of-factly, if I was staying at Bari. Outright he asked if I wanted to join Sampdoria. Mancini had been at the club years and was almost a son to the president, Paolo Mantovani".

Mancini kept in touch when Platt moved to Juventus and eventually helped bring him to Sampdoria.

At that stage, Mancini had established himself as the most powerful voice in the Blucerchiati dressing room.

As a teenager at Sampdoria, Mancini was not someone who liked his authority being questioned.

In 1997, after 15 years at Sampdoria, Mancini left the club to join Lazio, where he won a further scudetto and Cup Winners' Cup, in addition to the UEFA Super Cup and two more Coppa Italia titles.

Alongside Gianluigi Buffon, he is the player with the most Coppa Italia titles (6).

As a player, Mancini would often give team talks at half-time.

Towards the end of his playing career he became an assistant to Sven-Göran Eriksson at Lazio.

The following year, he was bought by Sampdoria, for £2.2 million, whom he played for until 1997.

With Sampdoria, he formed a dynamic strike partnership with Gianluca Vialli under manager Vujadin Boškov, which earned the pair the nickname The Goal Twins ("I Gemelli del Gol", in Italian).

His first manager role was at Fiorentina in 2001, at only 36 years old, winning a Coppa Italia title.

The following season, he took over as manager at Lazio, where he guided the club to another Coppa Italia title.

Mancini has reached at least a semi-final of a major national cup competition in every season he has been a manager, from 2002 to 2014.

In 2004, Mancini was offered the manager's job at Inter Milan, with which he won three consecutive Serie A titles, a club record; he was dismissed in 2008.

He holds a number of records, including most consecutive Coppa Italia finals from 2004 to 2008, with Lazio once in 2004 and with Inter Milan in the following four seasons.

After being out of football for over a year, Mancini was appointed Manchester City manager in December 2009.

He helped City win the FA Cup in the 2010–11 season, the club's first major trophy in 35 years, and their first league title in 44 years in the 2011–12 season.

In 2012, Mancini made a religious pilgrimage to the site of Our Lady of Medugorje and had stated that he is a believer who prays regularly, "The world would be a better place if everyone practiced the art of praying."

Mancini took over managerial duties at Turkish club Galatasaray in September 2013, winning the Turkish Cup in his only season at the club, before returning to Inter Milan for two more years before managing Russian side Zenit.

In 2018, he took charge of the Italy national football team after the team had failed to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

In 2021, Mancini guided Italy to their second-ever European Championship at Euro 2020.

Under his management, the team was unbeaten from October 2018 to October 2021, and holds the world record for most consecutive matches without defeat (37), but Italy then failed to reach the World Cup for the second time in a row after a play-off loss to North Macedonia.