PARIS, France -- Across Europe it is time for people to go back to work at the end of the summer holidays, and for Italy it is back to business too, less than eight weeks after their Euro 2020 triumph at Wembley.
"I would like the boys to pick up where they left off," said Mancini this week. "As a national team we can still improve between now and the World Cup, but first we have to qualify." At the moment the biggest European names with work to do are the Netherlands and Germany, two powerhouses who head into the autumn with new coaches.For a long time Flick was Loew's assistant and, after winning the Champions League with Bayern Munich, he is the man tasked with restoring pride to a national team that went out of Euro 2020 in the last 16.
The man who led the Oranje to the 2014 World Cup semi-finals takes over a team currently trailing a point behind Group G leaders Turkey.