• Luciano Spalletti was the runner-up for The Best FIFA Men’s Coach Award

• His nomination came after guiding Napoli to a first league title in 33 years

• The 64-year-old is now in charge of Italy

Luciano Spalletti made history last season by guiding Napoli to their first Serie A title since 1990, when club icon Diego Maradona ruled the roost and lifted a handful of trophies during his seven-year stay in Naples.

Spalletti’s achievement earned him worldwide recognition and an invitation from the Italian Football Association (FIGC) to become the national team's new coach. He promptly achieved qualification for UEFA EURO 2024, where his charges will face Albania, Spain and Croatia. His next goal will be to take Italy back to the FIFA World Cup™ stage for the first time since 2014.

The Italian placed second in voting for The Best FIFA Men’s Coach Award 2023, behind Pep Guardiola and ahead of compatriot Simone Inzaghi. The 64-year-old spoke to FIFA at the The Best FIFA Football Awards™ about his time in Naples and his current role.

Luciano Spalletti: For one thing, you need good footballers if you want to get good results. And that’s what happened in a city that has a passion for the team and its players. It all came together to allow us to play some serious football and get those results. We managed to combine the quality of our football with the passion of the people.

It’s important to say first of all that Naples was ready to welcome anyone who wanted to celebrate football. There were millions of fans in the streets, and not just Napoli, but Milan, Inter, Juventus, everyone. That sent an important message to the whole world. Neapolitans are creative people and they brought a unique angle to things, as they always do.

We started strong and that’s how we finished, in achieving our goal. Obviously, there were some key matches and wins along the way that allowed us to build up a big lead. Players like [Amir] Rrahmani, [Minjae] Kim, [Giovanni] Di Lorenzo, [Stanislav] Lobotka, [Andre-Frank] Zambo Anguissa, [Khvicha] Kvaratskhelia, [Victor] Osimhen and [Piotr] Zielinski all showed Europe and the world what they can do. They deserved the reward that came their way.

Having two Italians either side of the greatest coach in the world, someone we’ve all learned from, is something that should make Italy proud. Coverciano (the home of Italy’s national teams) is an important centre of football and we offer a modern take on the game there. We need to maintain our tactical traditions, though, because it brings balance to the football we play. I always tell young coaches not to focus just on tactics, analysis and video but to give their players the opportunity to express their talent. And we’re not short of quality players in the Italian league.

It’s a different job with the national team. It’s difficult not being on the pitch every day, but hearing the Italian national anthem and singing it, hand on heart, with 60 million Italians makes up for all the everyday things you miss out on. The dynamics are different, but it still involves sacrifice, hard work and effort, because you need to build a rapport with the players. You can’t have a strong team if you don’t have that.

I’m pleased with the way my team is developing. I've not achieved anything personally yet, but I'm pleased that I’ve been able to firm up a few mechanisms in the short time I've had so far, and put myself in a position where I can give my all. I can’t promise we’ll retain our European title, but we’ll certainly be doing all we can to back up everything we’ve said so far. There are going to be some very well-drilled teams there, like Germany, France, Spain and Portugal, with players who are used to winning things in every league in Europe. We have to be able to apply all our knowledge and expertise and create the right habits so we can play the football we want to.

The best player in the history of the game is Maradona, but when it comes to Italian football there are a lot of candidates. I’m thinking of No10s like [Roberto] Baggio, [Alessandro] Del Piero and [Francesco] Totti, but you’ve also got the likes of [Paolo] Maldini and [Fabio] Cannavaro. There’s so much to learn from them.

Gianluigi Buffon, because he went up in my estimation even more when I got to know him.

'The Game of the Century’ between Italy and West Germany. Mexico 1970 was the first World Cup I saw and remember in its entirety.