Roberto Mancini has left his role as head coach of Saudi Arabia’s national team, the country’s federation said Thursday.
Mancini, who won the European Championship as Italy coach in 2021, left by mutual consent, the federation said.
“The Saudi soccer federation’s Board of Directors and the national team coach, Italian Roberto Mancini reached a joint agreement on Thursday to end the contractual relationship,” the national team posted on social media platform X.
The former Internazionale and Manchester City manager won multiple titles in a storied career as both player and coach.
But he failed to lead Saudi Arabia to victory at the Asian Cup this year — exiting the tournament in the round of 16.
His actions during that match in Qatar also sparked controversy when he walked off before the end of his team’s losing penalty shootout against South Korea. He later apologized.
Mancini had been hired by Saudi Arabia in August 2023 — two weeks after he left his job in charge of Italy.
The Saudis are third in Group C of Asia’s third round of World Cup preliminaries with five points. They are five points adrift of group leaders Japan after four matches.
They lost 2-0 at home to Japan on Oct. 10 before being held to a scoreless draw by Bahrain five days later.
The top two in each group advance automatically to the World Cup while the third and fourth-placed sides go into another round of preliminaries with the bottom two finishers eliminated.
As manager of Inter, he won three Italian league titles and went on to win the Premier League with Manchester City in 2013 thanks to Sergio Aguero’s dramatic late goal on the final day of the season.
Information from The Associated Press and Reuters was used in this story.
