The former national team coach speaks out: “The FIGC president didn’t want me to stay”
“If Gravina had wanted to, she would have held me. She didn’t.” Robert Left-handed, former coach of the national team, speaks freely after his resignation and farewell to the Italy bench. The 58-year-old coach, who seems destined for a very rich contract in Saudi Arabia, turns the spotlight on his relationship with the president of the FIGC, Gabriele Gravina: “He didn’t want me to stay”, sums up Mancini.
“I didn’t do anything to be massacred like this. I just resigned and said it was my choice”, says Mancini in an interview with La Repubblica: “What I’m saying is independent of what could happen in the future and where will I go from. Now I don’t want to think about anything”. Mancini explains that “I just resigned and took full responsibility for the decision. I didn’t hide. I had spoken to President Gravina and tried to explain my reasons to him. I’ve never allowed myself to accuse anyone and I find myself being accused”, explains Mancini. “I have tried several times to talk to Gravina and explain my reasons to him. I explained to him that in recent months he had to give me peace of mind, he didn’t and I resigned, “he adds.
On timing, Mancini admits: “Should I have done it sooner? Maybe. But I left the national team 25 days from the next match, not three. And I think I’ve always been correct over the years.” But why did he leave? Does the new staff really have to do with it? “Anything, of course. Have you ever seen a federal president change the staff of a coach? Gravina has been wanting to revolutionize it for a year, I made him understand that he couldn’t, that at most he could insert a couple more figures , but that couldn’t deprive me of two people from a work group that worked, that works and that won the European Championship. If anything, I’m the one who could replace a member of staff. Do you know the truth? He’s been thinking opposite things to me for some time. But then why intervene on the staff? What does it has to do with it? At that point she had to send me away. Instead he took a chance because some of my co-workers were on deadline and played on that. I could have been tougher, sure, but I thought he figured it out on his own.”
How do you respond to the accusation of having betrayed the national team? “That I’ve always been correct. That when I arrived in blue I gave up on more profitable opportunities, I made a choice and it was the most important job of my life. I won a European Championship, it won’t be much but in the meantime we won it . If Gravina had wanted to, she would have kept me. He didn’t do it, “explains Mancini. A signal would have been enough for me, he didn’t give it to me. The truth is, he didn’t want me to stay, and that this situation had been there for months. But Gravina will be remembered as the president who won the European Championship, not for the mistakes he made”. . I had asked him to work calmly in recent months, that’s all, it’s clear that I would have left if things hadn’t gone well and we hadn’t been able to qualify.”
Source-www.adnkronos.com