LONDON -- Roberto Mancini had promised a change when he took over following the Italy national team's lowest point, after they failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. And he delivered.
While history will record him as the coach who led Italy to the 2020 European Championship (on June 11, 2021, but that's another story), his contribution is far greater. He turned a country's approach to their national team -- one of the few institutions all Italians share, from north to south, outside of the Catholic church, family and pasta -- into something few thought it could be: something fun, something courageous, something proactive, based on wanting the ball and taking risks with it.