Italy coach Roberto Mancini is aiming to win the European Championship in the summer and he wants to erase the ghosts of May 1992 when he played at Wembley in London as a Sampdoria player.
The Euro 2020 final will be played in the English capital on July 11 but the 56-year-old’s last visit was not a fond one as the Blucerchiati lost 1-0 in extra time to Barcelona in the European Cup Final.
“If we had won that game like we deserved, it would have closed a crazy cycle for us,” Mancini told La Gazzetta dello Sport.
“Yes, it was beautiful, but to lose the final in that way in extra time was ugly.”
The headline in La Gazzetta dello Sport the next day was, ‘Patience Samp. It was beautiful!’ Sampdoria have not qualified for the Champions League since losing that European Cup Final and Mancini hoping to avoid the same fate with Italy.
“No, no, thank you,” the Azzurri coach said. “I once had the patience. That’s enough.
“I hope that on the first page something can be written about something so beautiful that has given the entire nation joy, after what we have been through in the last year and a half.”
