Devis Mangia has pleaded for patience as the Italian faced the media for the first time yesterday since he was appointed as the new national team head coach late last year.

Mangia was named as the successor of Ray Farrugia late last month after putting pen to paper on a three-year contract.

“First of all I would like to thank the Malta FA president for having thought of me to be in charge of this project,” Mangia said.

“It is a very ambitious project and I am aware that my job will be to fulfil everything that there is in its manifesto. Our first objective is to create a more competitive national team.

“It will be important that everyone involved in the MFA Technical Centre works together as that is the only way for us to obtain the desired results.

“The players have to be the focal point of this project. Our aim is to help players from all age groups to improve under a shared philosophy.”

Mangia warned that things will not change overnight and has pleaded for time before anyone can make any judgements of the work being carried out by himself and his coaching staff.

“In the last two weeks we had the opportunity to watch a few Premier League matches and also games from the Youth League but these are still early days before I can make any kind of evaluation,” Mangia said.

“I will only be able to comment on the level of Maltese football in March when I meet with the players and start working with them directly. During that time, the players will under scrutiny and it will be up to them to show how much they deserve to wear the national team’s colours.

“I can assure that I will give everything I have in this job and the only thing I ask is to be given time. This project requires a patient approach before we can yield results and things cannot be changed overnight.

“To talk about what will be our style of play, at the moment, I prefer to keep that for myself and ensure that the first to understand my vision are the players.

“I have a lot of respect for all the previous national team coaches and I thank them for the excellent work they carried out. Now I’m bringing my ideas which inevitably will tweak the way the team has played in the past.”

Asked whether he feels any kind of added pressure to try and revive the fortunes of the national team.

“I feel a lot of responsibility as happens every time I am given a new job,” the 45-year-old said.

“But I don’t feel any pressure as that doesn’t help in such circumstances. I want all the players that are selected for the national team to be proud of wearing their country’s colours.

“Obviously, that won’t guarantee immediate results on the field, but as a starting point we’ll have the right approach from the players on the pitch and hopefully can make the country proud.”

Mangia’s debut as national coach will be in March when the national team will be playing friendly matches against potential UEFA Nations League opponents in Gibraltar and Azerbaijan who will be in Malta for a training camp.

Liechtenstein will also be here for a training camp but so far no confirmation has been given that they will playing against Malta in  a friendly.

On his part, Bjorn Vassallo, the MFA president, said that the main reason behind the appointment of Mangia is that he believes that he has the hunger and ambition to implement this project.

“At his age, Devis Mangia has the hunger and the ambition to succeed,” he said.

“Surely, it’s a huge challenge for him but with the CV that he is bringing, having worked not only at club level, both in Italy and abroad, but also as Italy U-21 national coach where he led the team to final of the European Championships, he is the right man for the job. I’m sure he will help us attain our goal of reviving the fortunes of Maltese football.

“Devis Mangia will not only be our national coach but he will also be responsible of all our technical projects.

“He will be bringing over a number of Italian coaches who will be working with him and together with a number of coaches from our technical centre we will be forming a very strong team that will help us implement our philosophy.”

The MFA president said that in the coming weeks, the Malta FA will be putting into effect a long-term strategy that will need the collaboration of all stakeholders in the game here.

“After my election as MFA president I made it clear that we needed to put into practice a strategic plan that had both long-term, medium term and short-term goals which will have as a final goal to improve the level of football in Malta,” Vassallo said.

“In the last months we spoke with three different schools of football – Italian, English and Spanish – to try and have a defined game strategy that will give us a shared route for all our national teams.

“During my time at FIFA I had the opportunity to follow the strategic plans of all European federations and I could figure out who was working well or not.

“Professionalism is the major factor that is missing in our game and we will be embarking on an educational project on a national level to ensure that everyone follows that route.

“Obviously that has to be a collective effort from all stakeholders in the game or else there will be no chance that it can be a success.”

Among the technical projects, the MFA will be taking on is formation of a club that will be playing in the Italian Serie C.

“The Lega Pro project will provide an opportunity for our players to test themselves at a higher level of football than what we have here,” Vassallo said.

Task force

“This project will provide our players with the opportunity of training on a professional status on a daily basis.

“We have set up a task force that will present a set of proposals that will safeguard the interest of the clubs, particularly when it comes to moving players from local clubs to this team.

“In the long term, we will be setting out a new foundation aimed at developing better players for the future.

“It will involve a better scouting network to try and lure youngsters to our academies the best talent possible, irrespective of their social status.

“We will increase our access in every town in Malta and once we find interesting players we will then ensure to optimise that talent. It’s a long process but hopefully it will help us to guarantee a far better future for the national team.”