Italian football came closer to its dream appointment than anyone realised. Paolo Maldini, the former FIGC technical director, revealed in an interview with Corriere della Sera in August 2026 that Pep Guardiola was seriously tempted by the Italy job and came very close to accepting it. For a few days in the summer, the most decorated coach of his generation was drawing up plans to rebuild the Azzurri. Then, at the last moment, he said no.

The courtship was no casual phone call. Maldini and advisor Leonardo flew to Barcelona for a face-to-face meeting with the Catalan, presenting a total rebuild project stretching from the under-17s to the senior squad. 'We went to meet him in Barcelona, we had lunch together, we talked for an entire day,' Maldini recalled. 'He was very tempted.' The discussions went deep into personnel: 'With Guardiola we studied lists of players, starting with the under-17 team and moving upwards. He even started writing the line-ups down on sheets of paper.'

Maldini was keen to kill one rumour stone dead: money was never the issue. Reports of a 20 million euro demand were wide of the mark. 'Give me one euro less than what the previous coach earned, and I'm fine,' Guardiola reportedly told him, a remarkable stance from a coach who could command any salary in club football. The FIGC had its man on every front except the one that mattered most.

The real reason was human, not financial. Guardiola was running on empty after ten relentless years in the Premier League with Manchester City, a decade that ended with the coach undergoing back surgery. 'He was exhausted after 10 demanding years in the Premier League,' Maldini explained. 'He had back surgery. He wants to rest.' There were footballing doubts too: the national-team role, without daily contact with players, never quite fit a coach whose methods depend on the training ground.

Italy moved on. With Guardiola out, Andrea Pirlo emerged as the leading candidate before his commercial ties to a betting company created a conflict of interest that blocked the appointment. Carlo Ancelotti, approached while coaching Brazil, also declined. On July 28 the FIGC turned to Roberto Mancini, the Euro 2020 winner returning for a second spell, supported by Claudio Ranieri as technical director and Gianfranco Zola overseeing youth projects.

The what-if will linger for years. Guardiola coaching a national team for the first time, and not just any team but a four-time world champion in ruins, would have been one of the boldest experiments in football history. Instead, Mancini is the man tasked with the rebuild, already scouring Serie A for young talent, in a country where the debate over how few Italians play regularly for the biggest clubs shows just how deep the problems run.