The Italian Football Federation (FIGC) has announced that Andrea Soncin will be the new coach of the Italy Women’s National Team following the departure of Milena Bertolini after the 2023 Women’s World Cup disappointment.
Bertolini expectedly left her role as Azzurre coach at the start of August but it has taken until early-mid September for the FIGC to make an appointment, with important matches coming up late in September which the team must prepare for. The FIGC replaced Roberto Mancini with Luciano Spalletti as Men’s National Team coach almost immediately in the meatime, even despite his resignation coming out of the blue.
The statement from the FIGC also confirms that Viviana Schiavi is going to be the assistant coach to Soncin.
Gravina talks up Soncin appointment
The FIGC confirmed that Soncin is going to be presented to the press as the new Azzurre coach along with the new staff on Monday, September 18 at Coverciano.
FIGC president Gabriele Gravina is going to be in attendance and the first game that Soncin will coach is the Nations League match against Switzerland in St. Gallen on September 22.
As part of the statement, Gravina said on Soncin: “We welcome Andrea Soncin to the helm of the National Women’s team. His love for the jersey, his technical preparation and his great enthusiasm represent decisive elements for the start of the new course of the Azzurre.
“A really difficult UEFA Nations League round awaits us, but our goal is to lay the foundations for the national team of the future, with a view to European and World Cup qualification. Viviana Schiavi, who knows the squad and the FIGC very well, will be working alongside Soncin.
“As well as these appointments, we are about to launch an important project that will be fundamental as a base layer of the women’s football movement. It will serve to help us in the relaunch of the growth of Italian women’s football, and it is something that the FIGC will allocate significant funds to.”
Who is Italy Women’s National Team coach Andrea Soncin?
Soncin’s appointment has not been met with excitement. In simple terms, Soncin has no experience of working within women’s football and he is not even a very experienced men’s coach.
He played for the likes of Fiorentina, Atalanta, Ascoli and Padova, as well as many others. The majority of his post-playing career time has been spent at Venezia where he was Under-17s coach for two years, a technical collaborator for the first team, and then two short interim spells as the first team coach, once in Serie A and once in Serie B.
Like many of the other names that were linked with this job since Bertolini’s departure, Soncin appears on the face of things to be a botched appointment rather than one that took serious thought and attention.
As for Viviana Schiavi, she played for Flammamonza, Bardolino, Brescia and ASD Mozzanica during her playing career in Italy, winning the league twice, the cup twice and the Supercoppa Italiana twice. She has been part of Club Italia since 2017/18 and has worked in a number of roles within the national team setup.
