Reports in the Italian press on Friday said that the Italian Football Federation and Luciano Spalletti have made a deal for him to take over as coach of the national team from Roberto Mancini.
La Gazzetta dello Sport says that Spalletti, the top choice of the league, will sign a three-year deal that will last until September 2026.
The former manager of Napoli has talked to federation head Gabriele Gravina on the phone a few times and has now agreed to take over from Mancini.
On Friday, Spalletti and Gravina will get together to finish up the deal.
The sports daily says that Spalletti’s first press appearance as coach is likely to be on Monday, the day after he is officially named. This could happen on Saturday.
In May, Spalletti’s team, Napoli, won the Italian championship. He then quit as coach.
He will be in charge of getting the national team back on track. Even though they won the European Championship in 2021, they didn’t make it to the World Cup in Qatar in 2022.
He will only have a few days to get ready for two games that are already very important if they want to protect their Euro 2024 title. On September 9, they go to Northern Macedonia, and on September 12, they play Ukraine in Milan.
Spalletti’s deal with Napoli, which runs until June 2024, has a rule that says he has to pay compensation of 3 million euros ($3.3 million) if he takes a new job. This has made it harder to negotiate with him.
The league is looking into legal options, but Aurelio De Laurentiis, the president and owner of Napoli, has said that “as a matter of principle” he will not waive the payment, which goes down by 250,000 euros each month.