Italy’s problem starts in Serie A, and I think the fix sits with the clubs more than with Roberto Mancini. A national coach can only pick players who play. Over the 2025 calendar year, Italian under-21s played just 1.9% of Serie A minutes, the second-lowest share of the 50 leagues measured by the CIES Football Observatory. Until clubs give young Italians real minutes, through first-team trust, second teams and planned loans, Mancini’s job in the 2026/27 season is to reward the clubs that do.
What does Mancini’s first squad say about the league?
Start with the list. The FIGC named Mancini’s first squad of 34 on 18 September 2026, seven weeks after he returned as coach on 28 July. Twenty-five played in Serie A and nine abroad, from Gianluigi Donnarumma at Manchester City to Mohamed Alì Zoma at Nürnberg. Inter and Atalanta sent four players each, Roma three.
Then the squad changed before a ball was kicked. Bryan Cristante dropped out on 20 September and Samuele Ricci of Como came in. Federico Dimarco followed a day later, replaced by Matteo Ruggeri of Aston Villa. That left ten of the 34 playing outside Italy. I read the club-by-club breakdown of Mancini’s squad as a map of where Italian players get trusted. It is a short map.
How few minutes do young Italians get in Serie A?
The CIES Football Observatory, a Swiss research group, measured the minutes given to under-21s eligible for each country’s national team in 2025. Serie A came in at 1.9%. France’s Ligue 1 gave 7.8%. Only one of the 50 leagues was lower than Italy’s.
The wider picture looks the same. By 22 April 2026, Sky Sport Italia counted just three Serie A clubs giving Italians more than half their minutes in 2025/26: Cagliari, Cremonese and Fiorentina. Como had used one Italian all season, Edoardo Goldaniga, for 14 minutes. The talent is there, as our guide to Serie A’s best young players shows. The minutes are what is missing.
Don’t Tonali and Calafiori prove that going abroad works?
This is the strongest counter-argument. Sandro Tonali at Tottenham and Riccardo Calafiori at Arsenal are two of Italy’s best players, and both play in England. Look at where they were built, though. Tonali grew up at Brescia and became a Milan regular before he left. Calafiori became an Italy international at Bologna, and Arsenal signed him from there in 2024. England polished them. Serie A made them. Going abroad works as a finishing school. It cannot replace the nursery.
Didn’t Italy win Euro 2020 with this same league?
They did, and Mancini was the coach. That summer showed what a well-drilled group can do in a month, and hid how thin the pool was getting. Italy then missed the 2022 World Cup, and on 31 March 2026 lost the play-off final to Bosnia and Herzegovina on penalties in Zenica. That was a third straight missed World Cup. A golden group can win a tournament. Two years of qualifying need depth, and depth comes from minutes.
Isn’t it the clubs’ job to win, not to help the Azzurri?
Yes, and what I want is a clear path for young players. In 2026/27 only three Serie A clubs, Juventus, Atalanta and Inter, run a second team in Serie C. Too many of the rest loan out their best 19-year-olds and hope. A second team, or a loan to a Serie B club with a written minutes target, gives a young player a plan, and the club keeps the value of a player it develops. The FIGC under Giovanni Malagò and Lega Serie A can reward that through licensing and revenue rules across the Italian league system.
What is Mancini’s part in this?
Pick players who play, on form and fitness, and say so out loud. His first squad reads to me more like a show of trust in the Italian player than a plan, and part of it looks like popularity and PR. Nicolò Zaniolo, in my view short of full fitness and with unstable form, is the clearest example. Alessandro Romano shows the standard to follow. He plays every week at Cagliari, the club that gave Italians the biggest share of minutes in 2025/26, and he earned his call-up on the pitch. Every call-up is a message to a club president: trust an Italian and he earns an Italy cap. That message only works when the cap is earned.
Mancini will be judged on results this autumn, next against Türkiye at the Stadio Renato Dall’Ara on 5 October 2026. I will judge Serie A on something slower: how many young Italians start when the league returns on 10 October. Italy can only be as deep as its league lets it be.
