Italy: a nation steeped in football history.
Four time-world champions and two-time European Championship winners, there is no doubting that Italy have produced some of the greatest footballers to ever grace the pitch. Their knack for producing exceptional managers is worthy of applause, too.
However, Italians haven’t always transferred their skills to English shores. The Premier League has boasted some impressive Azzurri stars but many of their elite have stayed put in Serie A. In fact, only a handful of Italians have ever got their hands on the Premier League trophy, most of whom have done so from the dugout.
Here are the Italians who have won the Premier League, either as a player or a manager.
Carlo Ancelotti
Don Carlo Ancelotti was the first Italian – player or manager – to lift the Premier League title, doing so at a club that had celebrated its fair share of Azzurri greatness. The likes of Gianfranco Zola, Gianluca Vialli and Roberto Di Matteo had all failed to earn champion status in England previously, but a star-studded Chelsea side lifted the trophy aloft come the end of the 2009/10 season.
Ancelotti has won silverware pretty much everywhere he’s been and pipped an impressive Manchester United team to top spot by a single point during a memorable campaign. The Blues finished on 86 points and netted 103 goals – 17 more than runners-up Man Utd – and triumphed on the final day with an 8-0 demolition of Wigan Athletic.
Their victory over the Latics was the fourth time they had scored seven or more in a single game that season, with Ancelotti’s men also winning the FA Cup six days after the end of the Premier League campaign having conceded just one goal in the competition.
Roberto Mancini
Roberto Mancini can certainly lay claim to the most dramatic Premier League title ever won. Taking charge of Manchester City in the 2011/12 season, the Sky Blues needed victory on the final day of the campaign to beat local rivals Man Utd to the trophy but found themselves 2-1 down to lowly Queens Park Rangers heading into stoppage time.
The rest, as they say, is history. Edin Dzeko produced an all-important equaliser in the 92nd minute before Sergio Aguero netted arguably the most famous goal in the competition’s history two minutes later. The Argentine’s near-post effort from close range spared Man City’s blushes and fired them to a first Premier League crown and a first league title since 1968.
Claudio Ranieri
If Mancini’s triumph with Man City was the most dramatic way a title has been won, Claudio Ranieri’s with Leicester City is certainly the most astounding. Given 5000/1 odds of winning the league before a ball had been kicked, the Foxes somehow saw off the likes of Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool, Chelsea, Man City and Man Utd to claim the most remarkable victory.
Ranieri, who had endured a difficult time at Chelsea in his only other Premier League job until he joined the Foxes, managed to create an incredible atmosphere at the King Power Stadium in his first season in charge, with a direct approach and some excellent recruitment enabling Leicester to do the unthinkable.
N’Golo Kante, Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez all starred as Leicester finished in top spot, but the likes of Wes Morgan, Christian Fuchs, Danny Drinkwater and Shinji Okazaki all earned hero status with their excellent performances en route to the most unlikely success story.
Antonio Conte
The fourth and most recent Italian manager to claim the Premier League title, Antonio Conte managed to win the league in his debut season in the competition. Hired as Chelsea boss in 2016, the Blues strolled to first place despite a relatively slow start to Conte’s tenure, wrapping up the title at the Hawthorns in May thanks to a rare Michy Batshuayi strike.
Chelsea saw off competition from another impressive Tottenham team and despite scoring fewer and conceding more goals than the Lilywhites, Conte’s Italian grit helped the west Londoners over the finishing line.
It certainly wasn’t the most gifted Chelsea squad ever assembled but Conte, thanks to a little help from Eden Hazard and Diego Costa, still managed to achieve incredible success.
Mario Balotelli
This one is a surprisingly short list. Only one Italian player has ever won the Premier League and it was none other than Mario Balotelli. Doing so under compatriot Mancini in 2011/12, the striker netted 13 goals in just 23 appearances (only 14 of which were starts), including two famous efforts in the 6-1 derby day victory over Man Utd at Old Trafford.
He also managed two red cards because, well, he’s Balotelli, but his most telling contribution came on the final day in that incredible 3-2 win over QPR. It was the Italian who slid a pass through to Aguero for the winner, which was his only assist of the entire campaign.
It was comfortably the maverick’s best season in England before a move back to Italy, with Balotelli setting a record that still stands today as the only Italian player to win the Premier League.