Italy’s Roberto Mancini makes incendiary comment about England fans

Roberto Mancini has hailed the Italy vs England fixture as international football’s El Clasico. And despite a recent and historic association with hooliganism, the Italy manager has backed the decision to hold such a powder-keg match in Naples – insisting it is on the England fans to behave.

Just as with the original El Clasico between Barcelona and Real Madrid, emotions are expected to be high with  41,000 of the 47,000 tickets sold for the opening qualifier of Euro 2024 – a repeat of the last European Championship final in 2021. “It’s become a bit of a Clasico,” Mancini said.

“It’s the fourth time we’ve come up against them in a short period. England are one of the best teams in the world – an extraordinary group of players who have been unlucky always.

“It will be a tough game.” There was already a noticeable police presence in the city on the eve of the game after a recent Champions League match against Eintracht Frankfurt was marred by violence.

The Napoli ultras are notoriously uncompromising and the presence of 3,000 England fans for the game is bound to create a powder-keg atmosphere. But Mancini feels it is down to the England fans to behave when he was asked about the wisdom of hosting such a high-profile game here.

“I don’t work for the police force, to be honest, but it’s always been the away fans that have come here and caused problems typically,” the 58-year-old said. “We saw that in the Champions League.

”If people come here and behave correctly, I don’t think there will be too many issues on that score. We hope nothing comes to pass because football should be a celebration for everyone.”

Clearly, defending champions Italy hope to be the ones celebrating harder – not least because they had to suffer the ignominy of not even qualifying for last year’s World Cup in Qatar. In the Euros, though, they have won their last 14 games on the spin and are further invigorated by the expected introduction of Mateo Retegui.

The Argentina-born 23-year-old still plays his club football in South America but has created such a good impression on his first call-up he already puts Mancini in mind of an Argentina legend.

“He’s a traditional, classic centre-forward,” Mancini said.“There have been a lot of comparisons and it has all been a little bit over the top.

“But although this guy is very young, I remember when Gabriel Batistuta came to Italy. He still needs to get used to his team-mates, it’s not easy and he’s a young kid. But he’s doing well.”

Mancini’s comments come despite a friendly match between England and Italy fans being cancelled by the Football Association due to violent threats from hooligans. One email read: “We are coming for you. You advertise this game for us to see where you’ll be… Stupid man you are. We will be there. 60 ultra to get you. Be warned.”