"Exceptions are conceivable," said new Italian Football Federation president Giovanni Malagò. That one phrase tells you everything about how seriously Italy is pursuing Pep Guardiola as their next national team coach.
Malagò confirmed this week that talks with the 55-year-old Spaniard are active and ongoing. A delegation led by newly appointed technical director Paolo Maldini reportedly spent several days in Barcelona making their pitch in person. That's not a preliminary enquiry — that's a proper pursuit.
Why Guardiola might actually say yes
Guardiola left Manchester City after a decade at the end of last season and had pencilled in a sabbatical. But the Italian job comes with a timeline that's hard to ignore. The 2028 European Championship is on home soil for Guardiola — the United Kingdom — and the 2030 World Cup is co-hosted by Spain. For a coach who has won everything at club level, back-to-back major tournaments with a country he could shape from scratch might be the kind of project that drags him off the sunlounger early.
The money is the obvious sticking point. Malagò was refreshingly blunt: "To say that we'll have to tighten our belts in the short to medium term is an understatement." Guardiola earned some of the highest wages in club football at City. International football rarely comes close to that. Italy would essentially be writing a cheque that breaks their own model.
Whether they can actually get this over the line is another matter. Malagò himself admitted: "It's not certain yet." That's a long way from a done deal.
The mess that made this necessary
The context here is damning. Italy have now failed to qualify for the World Cup three consecutive times — a statistic that would have seemed farcical a decade ago for a four-time world champion. The fallout was swift: Gattuso out as head coach, Buffon gone as team manager, federation president Gravina forced to resign. The rebuild starts from rubble.
Bringing in Guardiola would be a statement — Italy's odds of contending at Euro 2028 and beyond would shift considerably with him at the helm. But if the federation can't match his price, they'll be back to square one, negotiating with their second or third choice while pretending it was always the plan.
For now, the talks continue. And in football, "talks continue" usually means one of two things: a deal is close, or someone is about to walk away.
