[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"header-nav":3,"footer-nav":29,"article-italy-guardiola-ancelotti-talks-figc-coach-search":82,"category-counts-nav":97,"related-italy-guardiola-ancelotti-talks-figc-coach-search":107},[4,8,11,14,17,20,23,26],{"label":5,"to":6,"exact":7},"Home","\u002F",true,{"label":9,"to":10},"World Cup","\u002Fworldcup",{"label":12,"to":13},"Standings","\u002Fstandings",{"label":15,"to":16},"Football","\u002Fcategory\u002Ffootball",{"label":18,"to":19},"Basketball","\u002Fcategory\u002Fbasketball",{"label":21,"to":22},"Tennis","\u002Fcategory\u002Ftennis",{"label":24,"to":25},"F1","\u002Fcategory\u002Ff1",{"label":27,"to":28},"Long Reads","\u002Fcategory\u002Flong-reads",{"brand":30,"columns":32,"tagline":80,"copyright":81},{"description":31},"In-depth sports journalism covering football, basketball, tennis, F1, and beyond. Daily analysis, long reads, and expert opinion.",[33,51,59],{"heading":34,"links":35},"Leagues",[36,39,42,45,48],{"label":37,"to":38},"Premier League","\u002Ftag\u002Fpremier-league",{"label":40,"to":41},"La Liga","\u002Ftag\u002Fla-liga",{"label":43,"to":44},"NBA","\u002Ftag\u002Fnba",{"label":46,"to":47},"Formula 1","\u002Ftag\u002Fformula-1",{"label":49,"to":50},"Champions League","\u002Ftag\u002Fchampions-league",{"heading":52,"links":53},"Content",[54,56,57],{"label":55,"to":16},"Analysis",{"label":27,"to":28},{"label":58,"to":16},"Data & Stats",{"heading":60,"links":61},"Company",[62,65,68,71,74,77],{"label":63,"to":64},"Terms of Service","\u002Fservice",{"label":66,"to":67},"Privacy Policy","\u002Fprivacy",{"label":69,"to":70},"Editorial Policy","\u002Feditorial",{"label":72,"to":73},"Contact Us","\u002Fcontact",{"label":75,"to":76},"About Us","\u002Fabout",{"label":78,"to":79},"Website Disclaimer","\u002Fdisclaimer","Built for the love of sport","© SportPulse. All rights reserved.",{"title":83,"slug":84,"category":85,"badge":86,"author":87,"excerpt":88,"date":89,"readTime":90,"image":91,"imageAlt":83,"tags":92,"body":95,"_path":96},"Italy Turn to Guardiola and Ancelotti After Three World Cup Failures","italy-guardiola-ancelotti-talks-figc-coach-search","football","Football: Analysis","James Chen","The FIGC has spoken to two of football's biggest names as it scrambles to rescue the Azzurri from historic decline.","2026-07-23 15:48:04","4 min read","\u002Fimages\u002Farticles\u002Fitaly-guardiola-ancelotti-talks-figc-coach-search.webp",[93,9,94],"Serie A","Italy","## Three Missed World Cups Force Italy's Hand\n\nFour-time world champions Italy haven't appeared at a World Cup since 2014. That absent streak explains why the Italian football federation (FIGC) is reportedly speaking to Pep Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti about the national team job. **Three consecutive failures** to qualify represent the deepest trough in a footballing history stretching back over a century. The FIGC, guided by Paolo Maldini, wants a new coach announced within the week.\n\n## Guardiola Says No\n\nPep Guardiola has turned down the chance to coach Italy. The former Manchester City manager left at the end of a gruelling **2023-24 campaign** that included a **Premier League title** but also visible signs of fatigue in his project. He is currently unattached and was technically available. The appeal for Italy was concrete: a coach who redefined positional play at Barcelona, Bayern Munich, and City would bring tactical clarity to an Azzurri side that has lacked identity for years.\n\nGuardiola's entire managerial career has been built on daily coaching sessions, controlling the rhythm of club football, and spending months drilling patterns into squads he hand-picks. International management offers none of that. He would receive players for a handful of days before competitive fixtures, with no ability to buy specific profiles or train complex systems over extended periods. He has decided that trade-off does not work for him. Guardiola has never managed an international side and has given no public indication that he craves the challenge. The FIGC was chasing a name that wasn't running toward them.\n\n## Ancelotti: First in Line, Still Under Contract\n\nCarlo Ancelotti's situation is more complicated. The FIGC contacted Ancelotti before approaching Guardiola, making him the first target in this search. He is under contract with Brazil, a job he took after leaving Real Madrid at the end of the **2024-25 season**. Extracting him from the CBF would require negotiation, compensation, and willingness from both Ancelotti and the Brazilian federation to part ways.\n\nAncelotti is Italian to his core. He won **four Champions League titles** as a manager, including the **2014 *Décima*** with Real Madrid that capped years of near-misses. He managed **AC Milan** to European glory twice, in **2003 and 2007**, and played for the club during its dominant late-1980s era. The emotional pull of rescuing his home nation's national team is real.\n\nHis coaching style may suit international football better than Guardiola's. Ancelotti is a manager of relationships more than rigid systems, adept at getting the best from elite players in high-pressure knockout scenarios. His man-management has always outweighed his tactical schematics. For a national team setting, where bonding and clarity matter more than weekly drilling, that profile arguably fits.\n\n## The Depth of Italy's Decline\n\nItaly's collapse is a structural crisis. **Failure to qualify for Russia 2018** was a shock. **Missing Qatar 2022** was a pattern. **Not reaching the 2026 World Cup** confirms a systemic problem extending well beyond the manager's office.\n\nThe **2020 European Championship**, won by Roberto Mancini's side on penalties at Wembley, now reads less like a resurgence and more like an outlier. Since that triumph, Italy have slipped through Nations League campaigns, stumbled in qualifying groups, and cycled through managers without settling on a direction. Luciano Spalletti, who took over in 2023, could not arrest the slide.\n\nThe talent pipeline has thinned. Serie A clubs increasingly rely on foreign players in key positions, and the domestic league's financial struggles have eroded development infrastructure. A new coach, however decorated, inherits a squad short on world-class depth and heavy on players who perform well domestically but struggle to impose themselves internationally.\n\n## Options Narrowing for the FIGC\n\nThe pursuit of Ancelotti and Guardiola was institutional. Italy's football federation needs a figure whose stature commands respect, quiets the post-World Cup recriminations, and convinces a sceptical public that there is a plan. Both names delivered that on reputation alone.\n\nWith Guardiola confirmed as uninterested, the FIGC's options have narrowed sharply. Ancelotti would demand release from a contract he only recently signed with Brazil. If that extraction fails, the federation falls back on a less glamorous shortlist, and the narrative shifts from ambition to compromise.\n\nThe FIGC's weekly timeline suggests urgency, possibly panic. Hiring a coach of this calibre normally involves months of courting, contract negotiation, and staff assembly. Compressing that into days risks a rushed appointment driven more by optics than by genuine alignment between manager and project. Given the state of Italian football right now, the fallback to a less celebrated name may be where this ends.\n\n> *Updated: 2026-07-23 - Guardiola officially rejects Italy approach; contact order with Ancelotti confirmed.*","\u002Farticles\u002Fitaly-guardiola-ancelotti-talks-figc-coach-search",[98,99,100,101,85,102,103,104,105,106],"analysis","basketball","cricket","f1","general","golf","mma","long-reads","tennis",[108,121,134],{"id":109,"stem":109,"path":110,"title":111,"category":85,"badge":112,"badgeType":113,"author":87,"authorRole":114,"authorInitials":115,"date":116,"readTime":117,"image":118,"imageAlt":111,"tags":119,"excerpt":120},"everton-sign-hackney-middlesbrough-transfer-analysis","\u002Farticles\u002Feverton-sign-hackney-middlesbrough-transfer-analysis","Everton's £16m Hackney Move Signals a New Recruitment Blueprint at Goodison","Transfers","tag","Senior Football Analyst","JC","2026-07-02 09:16:39","6 min read","https:\u002F\u002Fichef.bbci.co.uk\u002Face\u002Fstandard\u002F976\u002Fcpsprodpb\u002F0afc\u002Flive\u002F214dde10-75f3-11f1-8c3f-e37c76e39331.jpg","Premier League, EFL Championship","Everton's capture of Hayden Hackney from Middlesbrough is more than a signing—it's a philosophical statement.",{"id":122,"stem":122,"path":123,"title":124,"category":85,"badge":55,"badgeType":125,"author":126,"authorRole":127,"authorInitials":128,"date":129,"readTime":130,"image":131,"imageAlt":124,"tags":132,"excerpt":133},"james-rice-miss-england-training-panama-injury","\u002Farticles\u002Fjames-rice-miss-england-training-panama-injury","James and Rice Raise Alarm as England's Panama Prep Hits a Snag","category","Marcus Wright","SportPulse Contributor","MW","2026-06-25 21:48:25","5 min read","https:\u002F\u002Fichef.bbci.co.uk\u002Face\u002Fstandard\u002F976\u002Fcpsprodpb\u002Fa3dd\u002Flive\u002F93a982d0-70d9-11f1-8fd9-bbd9722885d9.jpg","England, World Cup, Premier League","England's midfield and defensive spine is under scrutiny after two key men sat out the final training session before Panama.",{"id":135,"stem":135,"path":136,"title":137,"category":85,"badge":55,"badgeType":125,"author":138,"authorRole":139,"authorInitials":140,"date":141,"readTime":142,"image":143,"imageAlt":137,"tags":144,"excerpt":145},"wales-argentina-nations-championship-carre-rare-honesty","\u002Farticles\u002Fwales-argentina-nations-championship-carre-rare-honesty","Carre's Rare Honesty Exposes a Wales Side Running Out of Road","Sarah Martinez","Transfer Correspondent","SM","2026-07-12 17:46:00","7 min read","https:\u002F\u002Fichef.bbci.co.uk\u002Face\u002Fstandard\u002F976\u002Fcpsprodpb\u002Fc120\u002Flive\u002Fad689200-7dff-11f1-9800-45cddfec00b9.jpg","Nations Championship, Wales, Argentina, Rugby","Rhys Carre's blunt admission that Wales stepped backward against Argentina reveals a team grappling with uncomfortable truths."]