Italy will replace Chelsea-bound national coach Antonio Conte with Giampiero Ventura after Euro 2016.
Conte’s move to Stamford Bridge was announced in April and he will take over when his Italy contract expires at the end of this summer’s tournament.
Ventura, 68, most recently coached Serie A side Torino and led them to 12th in the league last season.
His five-year tenure at the club – including promotion from Serie B in his first year – came to an end in May.
Ventura’s only managerial trophy is a third division title with Lecce in 1996, but Italian football federation president Carlo Tavecchio described him as a “master of football”.
Tavecchio also called Ventura an “innovative” coach with “limitless experience” who has helped many players reach the national side.
He will have a two-year deal until the end of the Russia 2018 World Cup and is expected to take several of his key staff from Torino to the Italy set-up.
It does beg the question though, could they not have got anyone else. The appointment seems to be a bit flat. Off the top of my head they could have gone for Claudio Ranieri, Roberto Mancini, Luciano Spalletti.
It seems as if they’ve given the job to a pretty uninspiring candiidate
Ok Ranieri will no doubt want a crack at the Champions League after the phenomenal success with Leicester last season while Mancini’s Inter Milan have just been taken over by Chinese owners so there will no doubt be some funds to spend their this Summer so perhaps now wouldn’t have been the right time to walk away from the San Siro
And then again Spalletti had only just recently taken over as Roma Manager so perhaps the vacancy of the Italian National side come around too soon. So bascially I’ve just defeated my own point and it seems as if Ventura has almost got the job by default…..alrighty then (sorry I had to get the Ace Ventura gag in there somewhere)