The Italian Football Federation took another step on Saturday toward rebuilding the national team by appointing Paolo Maldini as technical director of the federation and Leonardo, the former Brazilian national team player and 1994 World Cup winner, as consultant.

Giovanni Malagò, newly elected president of the Italian Football Federation, said that the appointments of Maldini and Leonardo were the first step in the process of appointing a new head coach for the Italian national team.

Of Maldini and Leonardo, Malagò said: "They are two sides of the same coin; there is a four-year commitment that must take us from now until 2030, to the next World Cup, via the European Championship."

Leonardo, the former coach of Inter and Milan, as well as the former director of Paris Saint-Germain, was a teammate of Maldini at AC Milan.

— Nazionale Italiana ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@Azzurri) July 11, 2026

Maldini and Leonardo will seek to choose a successor for coach Gennaro Gattuso, who left his post after the Azzurri failed to qualify for the World Cup for the third consecutive time.

According to ESPN, the leading candidates for the head coach position of the Italian national team are Roberto Mancini and Antonio Conte.

Mancini led Italy to win the European Championship title in 2021, then failed to lead the Azzurri to the 2022 World Cup, before leaving to coach the Saudi national team. Mancini left Saudi Arabia in 2024, and recently left Qatari club Al Sadd.

As for Conte, he previously coached the Italian national team at Euro 2016, and recently resigned as head coach of Napoli.