With both its head coach and federation president gone following a third consecutive World Cup failure, the Azzurri turn to their Under-21 boss, Silvio Baldini, as interim coach. The search for a permanent solution begins in earnest.
The Italian Football Federation (FIGC) has confirmed the appointment of Under-21 head coach Silvio Baldini as interim manager of the senior Azzurri, formalising a caretaker arrangement that will see the 67-year-old take charge for two away friendly matches in June. Italy will face Luxembourg on 3 June before travelling to Crete to play Greece on 7 June.
Baldini will be supported by his existing Under-21 coaching staff and, according to Corriere dello Sport, is expected to draw heavily on Under-21 players for his squad selections.
The crisis that brought Baldini to the fore
The appointment came 10 days after Italy again failed to qualify for the World Cup. The penalty shootout defeat to Bosnia and Herzegovina, which confirmed the four-time world champions will miss a third consecutive World Cup, triggered the resignations of both head coach Gennaro Gattuso and FIGC president Gabriele Gravina.
The double departure left Italian football in an unusual state of institutional vacuum. Gravina had been the architect of Gattuso’s appointment, and his own exit meant that decisions about a permanent successor could not realistically be taken until the FIGC itself had new leadership. With the federation’s Federal Council due to convene on 22 June to elect a new president, Baldini’s role is explicitly an interim post.
The precedent is a painful one. In 2018, following Italy’s failure to qualify for the World Cup under Giampiero Ventura, Under-21 coach Luigi Di Biagio took interim charge for two friendlies against Argentina and England before Roberto Mancini was appointed as permanent manager. Baldini is filling an almost identical role eight years on, with Italy’s footballing crisis running deeper than ever.
Who is Silvio Baldini?
Baldini has been the Under-21 head coach since July 2025, and in that role his side has won eight of their nine matches. But his career profile is rooted in the Italian lower and mid-tier divisions, where he has built a reputation as a stubborn, results-oriented operator with a taste for promotion campaigns.
He has managed a string of Serie A clubs — Empoli, Parma, Lecce and Catania among them — but his most celebrated achievements have come further down the pyramid. He led Palermo to promotion in 2023, and this season guided Pescara into Serie B. His methods work. His temperament, however, has brought him into trouble more than once: he received a touchline ban in 2001 for swearing, and a further suspension in 2008 after kicking the opposing team’s coach.
