Japanese coach Alberto Zaccheroni has been linked heavily with a return to Italian football with rumours about the national team looking to hire him as a replacement for Cesare Prandelli. As the current national team coach, Prandelli has done exceedingly well, but he is looking at returning to love football after the end of the World Cup. He has gained immense reputation since becoming Italy’s manager and it is thought that several top clubs like AC Milan and Manchester United would want to hire the manager.
This would leave Italy once again looking for a top manager and they are believed to have zeroed in on Zaccheroni, who has done extremely well with the Japanese national team. He has managed to immerse himself in Japanese football extremely well. It has helped him find new players with consistent hits. It has been a major reason behind Japan qualifying for the World Cup 2014 with ease. In Brazil, Japan will be up against Colombia, Greece, and Ivory Coast in the group stages. This is seen as a great opportunity for the nation to get into the knockout stages since all of the teams are at the same level – if not – below than Japan.
Zaccheroni, though, has insisted that he has not received any offers from Italy and that there has been no contract as well.
“I’ll wait until the end of the World Cup and I will decide based on what proposals arrive. I don’t even know when this call [from the FIGC] could arrive. Until now, anyway, nobody from Italy has called me. My intention is to decide [his future] in July, not that I know if others can wait until that time,” said the manager, who has been involved in Japanese football since becoming their national team manager in 2010.