ROME (AFP) - Zenit St Petersburg coach Roberto Mancini has revealed in an emotional interview how coaching his native Italy would be "extraordinary".
Mancini, 53, is among the favorites to lead the four-time World Cup winners, with Chelsea manager Antonio Conte and former Bayern Munich coach Carlo Ancelotti also being touted as candidates.
"When you're abroad you always miss your country," said Mancini in an episode of "The Lords of Football" series with Sky.
"When you are in Italy, you sometimes criticize it rightly. You go abroad and you miss this feeling.
"You become nostalgic for the past when we were young, in the '70s and '80s when we saw the Italian national team playing with great emotion.
"You never know in life, I think that coaching Italy one day would be an extraordinary thing of enormous prestige."
"In the meantime, though, I'll try to win and do my best with Zenit," he added of his current team, who are struggling down in fifth in Russia.
Giampiero Ventura was fired as coach last November, days after Italy's shock failure to qualify for the World Cup for the first time in 60 years.
********Roberto Mancini won league titles with both Man City and Inter Milan, but has struggled in Russia with Zenit