Luciano Spalletti to remain as Italy manager despite early exit from Euro 2024

Luciano Spalletti will stay on as the manager of Italy’s national team.

The former European champions saw their title defence limp to an end on Saturday in a 2-0 loss to Switzerland in the round of 16.

Despite the result, Italian Football Federation chief Gabriele Gravina confirmed that there would not be a change in manager.

“Spalletti has our full trust and we will move forward with him. It is not thinkable to change head coach and stop this project,” Gavrina said at a press conference.

“This is a big disappointment. We are all responsible and we won’t abandon the project started with Spalletti.”

The former Napoli manager took over for Roberto Mancini nine months ago and is under contract until September 2026.

In 14 games Spalletti has seven wins, four draws and three losses including two at this year’s European Championship.

After his team’s result, Spalletti took blame for his team’s result.

“The responsibility is mine,” Spalletti said. “It’s on my head in terms of what’s happened, but this is part of a process and I have to say this. Because otherwise it might seem that I’m looking to justify things in a certain way.

“I think I know what is needed to fix things. I want to make the squad younger and recreating it starting from the bottom.”

Italy barely qualified for the group stage after Mattia Zaccagni rescued the team with a late goal in a 1-1 draw against Croatia. They beat Albania 2-1 in their opening game, before being dominated by Spain despite only losing 1-0.

In each of their four games at the Euros, Italy was scored on first.