Italy fires Spalletti amid prospect it could fail to qualify for 3rd straight World Cup

ROME (AP) — The fear that four-time champion Italy will fail to qualify for a third straight World Cup has cost coach Luciano Spalletti his job.

Spalletti announced Sunday that he is being fired and will leave after Monday’s World Cup qualifier against Moldova.

The move comes two days after Italy lost 3-0 at Norway in its opening qualifier.

“Last night I had a conversation with the president (Italian soccer federation president Gabriele Gravina) and he told me that I would be fired,” Spalletti said in a pre-match news conference at Italy’s training center. “I didn’t have any intention on (leaving) and I would have preferred to stay on. But it’s a sacking and I realize that.”

Claudio Ranieri, who just concluded a successful season at Roma but had said he was retiring from coaching, is reportedly the federation’s top choice to replace Spalletti.

But the federation did not immediately name a replacement — and after the Moldova game, Italy doesn’t play again until September.

Spalletti was hired in August 2023 when Roberto Mancini unexpectedly left to take over Saudi Arabia’s national team. Spalletti was given a three-year contract through the 2026 World Cup.

Spalletti’s first major tournament ended with a disappointing 2-0 loss to Switzerland in the round of 16 of last year’s European Championship.

Then Italy was eliminated from the Nations League quarterfinals after conceding an embarrassing goal to Germany earlier this year — which meant that the Azzurri entered a five-team World Cup qualifying group featuring Erling Haaland’s Norway instead of a four-team group in which the highest-ranked nation is Slovakia.

Winning the group is the only way to ensure direct qualification to next year’s tournament in North America. The second-placed team goes into the playoffs, the stage where Italy was eliminated by Sweden and North Macedonia and ruled out of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, respectively.

Having started qualifying late, Italy has zero points and trails group leader Norway by nine points.

What’s more, key defender Francesco Acerbi — the center back who was supposed to mark Haaland — turned down the callup for the Norway and Moldova matches.

“I’ve always taken on this job as a service to the nation and I will do everything I can to help the future of the national team,” Spalletti said. “I’ll come to a contract resolution after tomorrow night. … I had all the support possible concerning the choices I wanted to make. But the results didn’t come.”

___ AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer