Mohamed Salah was ranked seventh in the Ballon d’Or rankings for the best player in the world for 2021, from the French magazine “France Football”.
And the first place was won by the Argentine Lionel Messi, the star of Paris Saint-Germain.
Mancini said in an exclusive interview with the “Al Ain Sports” portal: “Mohamed Salah deserved to get a better position than the one he got in the Golden Ball.”
Mancini considered that the Italian Jorginho, the Chelsea midfielder, was the one who deserved to win the Ballon d’Or as the best player in the world in 2021.
Mancini said: “Jorginho was wronged, because as a player he managed in one year to win the Champions League with his team, the European Nations Cup with his country, and weeks ago he also won the Club World Cup.”
The reason for the exit of Italy
Mancini also talked about why Italy did not qualify directly for the 2022 World Cup, months after winning the European Nations Cup “Euro 2020”.
He explained: “Everyone should know that we deservedly won the European Championship, because we are a very strong team, but unfortunately we did not deserve to go directly to the World Cup.”
On the reason for the failure to qualify, the Italian coach said: “Our luck was very bad, after missing two penalties in two consecutive matches that were decisive for our promotion. It was enough to score one penalty kick to cross, but this is football, and this is part of it.”
Mancini’s comments came in reference to Jorginho’s failure to score two penalties against Switzerland, in the fifth and ninth rounds of the qualifiers, so the two matches ended in a draw, and Switzerland won the group lead and the qualification ticket.
Praises to Algeria
On the other hand, Roberto Mancini praised the Algerian national team, stressing that he was afraid of his ability to break the Azzurri’s record by not being defeated in 38 consecutive matches, before the “Desert Warriors” series stopped at No. 35.
“Yes, they were close to that, and this is the value of records, they were made to break.”
And he added, “Algeria is a strong team, and it had a great record of not losing many consecutive matches.”
And he concluded: “Let me say it frankly, Algeria is a strong team, as well as Saudi Arabia, and all Arab teams have chances to qualify for the World Cup, because they have all the ingredients to win.”
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