Roberto Mancini came back to the Italy bench in Rome on Friday night and was beaten by a Belgium side playing its first match under Mark van Bommel. Italy lost 2-0 in their Nations League opener, in front of a crowd of almost 50,000 who let the manager hear what they thought of it.
Both new eras started on the same evening and only one of them got what it wanted. Van Bommel, the former Netherlands midfielder, had never taken charge of the Red Devils before. Mancini was beginning a second spell with Italy after leaving in 2023, the man who won Euro 2020 with them returning to a squad that failed to reach this summer's World Cup.
Godts opens it, Lukebakio finishes it
Mika Godts got the first. The Paris St-Germain winger cut inside two defenders in the box and hit it, and that was his first goal for Belgium. The second was the better one. Dodi Lukebakio, now at Benfica, carried the ball from inside his own half, kept going when nobody closed him down, and blasted it in from 25 yards.
Two goals, two players who are not yet household names outside their own leagues, and a Belgium side that looked settled from the first whistle under a manager who had never picked them before. Van Bommel spent his playing career at PSV, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Milan and won a Champions League at two of them, so he is not short of authority in a dressing room. Whether that translates over a campaign is another matter, but the first night went about as well as it could have.
Mancini on the boos
Asked afterwards whether Italy's failure to qualify for the World Cup was still hanging over the country, Mancini did not pretend otherwise. "We need to think positively and not keep banging on all the time about what has happened in the past," he said. "In any case we can't change what happened now."
He was also asked about the jeering from the stands. He called it "normal" and "part of the game", which is the answer of a man who has managed in Italy before and knows exactly how this works. The Azzurri have won a European Championship under him and missed two World Cups as a nation, and the gap between those two facts is the whole of the job he has walked back into.
Two debuts from Serie C
The most interesting thing Mancini did all night came late, when he sent on Issa Doumbia of Sporting and Nuremberg's Mohamed Ali Zoma for their first Italy caps. As recently as the 2023-24 season the pair were team-mates at AlbinoLeffe in Serie C. Two seasons later they are internationals, which tells you something about how far Mancini is prepared to look and how thin the alternatives have become.
Belgium's reward is top spot in the group on goal difference ahead of France, who won 1-0 in Turkey on the same night. For Italy it is a first defeat of the new cycle and a home crowd that has already made up its mind about the direction of travel. Mancini has time. He does not have much patience to draw on.
Match facts: Italy 0-2 Belgium, Uefa Nations League League A Group 1, Rome, Friday 25 September 2026. Scorers: Mika Godts (Paris St-Germain), his first Belgium goal, and Dodi Lukebakio (Benfica) from 25 yards. BBC Sport did not give the minute for either goal, so none is stated here. Attendance close to 50,000. Debuts: Issa Doumbia (Sporting) and Mohamed Ali Zoma (Nuremberg), team-mates at AlbinoLeffe in Serie C in 2023-24. Mark van Bommel's first match as Belgium head coach; Roberto Mancini's first match of his second spell with Italy, having previously held the job from 2018 to 2023 and won Euro 2020. Source: BBC Sport.
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