The phone call that matters most in Italian football has been made. Roberto Mancini is returning as head coach of the Azzurri, confirmed Tuesday by FIGC president Giovanni Malagò — ending weeks of chaos that saw Pep Guardiola say no, Andrea Pirlo blocked over ties to a Russian betting firm, and a furious Paolo Maldini walk out the door. Italy needed someone who had already rescued them once. They went back to the man who did exactly that.

Mancini replaces Gennaro Gattuso, who departed in April after Italy failed to qualify for a third consecutive World Cup — a humiliation that would have been unthinkable a decade ago for one of the sport's great powers. The returning coach knows the weight of that failure better than most: he was in charge for the 2022 qualifying collapse himself. Yet his record also includes one of the finest moments in recent Italian football history — a penalty shootout win over England at Wembley to claim the 2020 European Championship. In 58 matches across his first spell, he rebuilt a squad that had barely existed.

Now he must do it faster. Alongside Mancini, the 74-year-old Claudio Ranieri steps into the technical director role vacated by Maldini. The appointment is striking: Ranieri, who guided Leicester City to their miraculous Premier League title in 2016, will now oversee elite development across all of Italy's national team structures. Two men defined by unlikely triumphs, sharing responsibility for an equally unlikely recovery mission.

"I believed that the best person to become head coach was Roberto Mancini," Malagò said — a statement that sounds simple but carries a month of bruising politics inside it.