Italy coach Roberto Mancini said that watching the football played during the World Cup in Qatar, he had the clear idea that his team would have had a chance to go all the way and even win the competition.
Italy was the big absentee of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, but it is Mancini's belief that if it were to participate in this event, it would have a real chance of winning it.
"It's very easy to talk later. "I cheered for Argentina because for Messi, the best in the last 20 years, to end his career without winning a World Cup would not have been right ," Mancini said in an interview for "La Gazzetta Dello Sport".
"But Italy, when it is, is dangerous for anyone. For this reason, I have always said that we had an objective to win it and today I say that we could play our chances. Yes, even to try to win it. I hope it hurt my players as much as I did watching it on TV. I think yes, they knew that they would have made a good appearance and they know that it is necessary to prepare as well as possible for the decisive moments of the upcoming qualifiers", said Mançini.