Antonio Conte Returns to the Italy National Team: He Was Fenerbahçe's Dream

A new period opened on the Conte side after the Napoli departure has turned towards the national team direction. The Italian manager had won trophies such as the 2024-25 Serie A championship and the Italian Super Cup in the two seasons he spent with Napoli; however, he took the decision to leave the club at the end of the second season jointly with president Aurelio De Laurentiis. Conte, at the press conference held after Napoli's last match in which they beat Udinese 1-0, explained that he had called the president a month ago and said he felt the project was coming to an end; at the same press conference, he made the assessment "I failed in one thing at Napoli: I didn't bring unity to the environment and this also makes it difficult to compete with other teams." De Laurentiis, during the documentary premiere in Los Angeles, had stated that he would not oppose Conte's move to the national team, saying "If Antonio asked me, I think I would say yes."

The situation in which the Italy national team finds itself has brought the search for a new manager to a critical position. The Azzurri wearing blue jerseys could not participate in the 2026 World Cup after the 2018 and 2022 World Cups; Italy, which was eliminated by penalties in the play-off match against Bosnia and Herzegovina, could not show themselves in the biggest football organisation for the third consecutive time. After this result, manager Gennaro Gattuso resigned, federation president Gabriele Gravina left his seat, and team sporting director Gianluigi Buffon left his post. The new federation president election will be held on June 22; the two main candidates stand out as former Italy Olympic Committee president Giovanni Malagò and former federation president Giancarlo Abete. The national team will be led by interim manager Silvio Baldini in the two friendly matches to be played in June.

The list published by Schira reveals the balance in the Italy national team manager position. According to the Italian transfer expert, Antonio Conte, Massimiliano Allegri, Claudio Ranieri, Stefano Pioli and Roberto Mancini are among the names Malagò is considering for the national team. If Malagò is elected federation president, he will bring one of these five names to the head of the national team; the statements and the news flow standing out in the Italian press show that Conte is the strongest candidate of these five. Conte had managed Italy between 2014-2016 in his first national team experience, taking the Azzurri to the quarter-final at the 2016 European Championship; the playing approach of the team eliminated by penalties against Germany and the character of the manager had marked that period. Conte, who has now come to the fore on stage again for a return, is preparing to present his experience as a solution to the deep crisis of Italian football.

The Fenerbahçe side had made a serious effort for the Conte transfer. According to Fanatik newspaper, at the end of May 2026, both Aziz Yıldırım and Hakan Safi presidential candidates had reached the Italian manager and held talks for him to come to the head of the club. It was stated that Conte demanded a base annual salary of 15 million Euros in exchange for coming to the Süper Lig and an additional bonus of 5 million Euros in case of championship; this figure could have been a record for Turkish football. It was known that Fenerbahçe saw Conte as an attractive move to close the championship gap with Galatasaray and leave behind the failures experienced in previous seasons. However, the Italian manager's choice of the national team route instead of club football shows that the yellow-and-navy community will go into a search for another manager this time. At this point, Conte's last official steps will become clear after the determination of Italy's new federation president on June 22; in case Malagò wins the election, Conte stands out as the first candidate to sign as the national team manager.

Source: Nicolò Schira 

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