Spalletti vs. Gattuso: former Italy bosses meet again at the Stadium
Gennaro Gattuso and Luciano Spalletti go head to head in Sunday’s big game in circumstances few would have predicted before the season began. After six games, Ringhio’s Lazio sit top of the table, level with Inter and five points clear of Juventus. That gap reflects contrasting starts to the campaign, but it feels almost secondary to what the two coaches have in common.
There is a thread running through both men’s experiences that goes far deeper than the league table. It could be summed up in a single motto: coaching to forget. Both have returned to club football after their plans for Italy fell apart. Spalletti and Gattuso were Italy’s last two head coaches before current boss Roberto Mancini, following one another in the job during one of the most difficult periods in Italian football’s recent history.
Spalletti had big shoes to fill, but his tenure was derailed by a last-16 exit at EURO 2024 and a difficult start to World Cup qualifying. Gattuso, brought in to succeed him, tried to rekindle the hopes of an entire nation, only for that night in Zenica, Bosnia, to end Italy’s World Cup dream once again.
The disappointment cut deep for both men, each of whom had seen the national team as an opportunity to fulfil different but equally important ambitions. For Spalletti, the Italy job could have crowned nearly three decades in club management; for Gattuso, it was a chance to revive his coaching career and cement his reputation after the setbacks that had followed a promising start. Nineteen years separate them. When Ringhio was making his Serie A debut for Perugia, Spalletti was already working to take Empoli into the top flight.
Their shared history, though, began long before their spells with Italy. It takes us back to a time when one was still a young midfielder and the other was trying to make his way in management.
From Marassi to the Madonnina: their past meetings
Their first meeting came in Sampdoria vs. Salernitana at Marassi on 8 November 1998, with a young Luciano Spalletti in the home dugout and Gattuso wearing the visitors’ maroon colours. After Salernitana, AC Milan were the only Italian club Ringhio played for. In their later meetings as coach and player, Spalletti managed different clubs, while Gattuso always lined up for the Rossoneri.
It was in the AC Milan dugout that Gattuso faced Spalletti again, now as a rival coach. Four meetings, all in the Derby della Madonnina, with the city’s fierce rivalry providing the backdrop.
Ringhio struck first. In the 2017/18 Coppa Italia quarter-final, AC Milan beat Inter thanks to an extra-time goal from Patrick Cutrone, a Rossoneri academy graduate who flourished under Gattuso. The next league derby ended 0-0. The following season was a different story. Spalletti had his revenge, winning both Serie A derbies as the two Milanese clubs fought until the very end for fourth place and a Champions League spot. Mauro Icardi settled the first meeting. In the return fixture, it was Lautaro Martínez’s turn to shine as Inter won 3-2.
After their derby battles in Milan, the contest now moves to Turin. The colours and ambitions have changed. Above all, there is the experience both men have gained along the way. But Spalletti vs. Gattuso is also the latest chapter in a much longer story, one spanning more than a century of Italian football.
Former Italy bosses face off: over a century of history
Gattuso vs. Spalletti is hardly an isolated case. Serie A’s history is full of meetings between coaches who, at different times, have led the Azzurri. The tradition even predates the top flight’s unification into a single national league.
The first chapter takes us back to 2 May 1915, when Vittorio Pozzo’s Torino thrashed William Garbutt’s Genoa 6-1. The Englishman was Italy’s first foreign coach, serving at a time when the national team was run by a technical committee. Pozzo had led Italy at the 1912 Olympics, while Garbutt had taken charge of six matches between May 1913 and May 1914. Ten years later, on 11 October 1925, Garbutt got his revenge, leading Genoa to a 2-1 win over Pozzo’s AC Milan.
When Serie A adopted a unified national league format in 1929/30, the tradition continued with meetings between Augusto Rangone and Carlo Carcano, the two coaches who held the Italy job before Pozzo returned for his third spell in 1929. Their paths crossed first in Pro Patria vs. Alessandria and later in Juventus vs. Pro Patria. That initial encounter set an important precedent: for the first time, a former Italy coach was facing his immediate successor.
The 1950s brought meetings between Lajos Czeizler and Alfredo Foni, as well as Foni and Giuseppe Viani. The following decade added further chapters, with repeated clashes between Helenio Herrera and Edmondo Fabbri. Alongside Ferruccio Valcareggi, Herrera had taken over from Fabbri after Italy’s disappointing 1966 World Cup campaign, leading the national team from November that year to March 1967. His Inter side beat Fabbri’s Torino twice in 1967/68: 1-0 in Milan and 3-2 away. Those duels continued in the years that followed, with Herrera moving to Roma and Fabbri coaching Torino, Bologna and Cagliari.
Gradually, though, such meetings became less frequent. Fulvio Bernardini and Enzo Bearzot did not return to club management after leaving the Italy job. Azeglio Vicini, meanwhile, returned only briefly and did not face any other former Italy coaches during that spell.
From Maldini vs. Zoff to Conte vs. Spalletti: the most recent meetings
Our story picks up again on 1 April 2001, when AC Milan, with Cesare Maldini and Mauro Tassotti in charge, beat Dino Zoff’s Lazio 1-0 thanks to a goal from Zvonimir Boban.
Maldini and Zoff had also led Italy in succession, with the latter taking over after the 1998 World Cup in France. At AC Milan, Maldini served as technical director, with Tassotti as coach. The match brought together two eras of national team history, from the 1998 World Cup team to the side that came so close to winning EURO 2000.
More recently, Cesare Prandelli and Antonio Conte met twice in quick succession in 2021. On 13 January, Conte’s Inter beat Prandelli’s Fiorentina 2-1 after extra time in the Coppa Italia last 16, thanks to a last-gasp goal from Romelu Lukaku. A few weeks later, again at the Franchi, the Nerazzurri also won the league meeting, this time 2-0 through goals from Barella and Perišić. Conte was suspended, however, with assistant Cristian Stellini taking his place in the dugout. Once again, the Italy connection was direct: Conte had replaced Prandelli after the Azzurri’s group-stage exit at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
Finally, we reach the present day and Antonio Conte and Luciano Spalletti, two masters of modern Italian football whose first meeting in the dugout came as recently as 7 December 2025, at the Maradona, where Napoli won 2-1.
Spalletti turned the tables in the return fixture at the Stadium with a convincing 3-0 win for Juventus. Both coaches have won the Scudetto with Napoli and, at different points in their careers, shouldered the expectations of an entire nation.
A story still being written
It is now up to Luciano Spalletti and Gennaro Gattuso to write the next chapter in a story spanning more than a century of Italian football. Times and teams have changed since the days of Pozzo and Garbutt, as has the very nature of the national team coach’s role. What remains is the connection to a job that, more than any other, carries the weight of a nation’s expectations.
For Spalletti and Gattuso, though, Juventus vs. Lazio is above all about the here and now: one needs to make up ground, while the other aims to hold on to joint top spot. In the background lingers the memory of a shared dream, pursued at different times and cut short before it could be fulfilled. At the Stadium, both now have another story to write.