Between 2010 and 2025 Italy’s sevens team performed a vanishing act. Their disappearance bore all the hallmarks of the most profound ‘now you see me, now you don’t’ illusion that no one questioned what happened.
While the Italian rugby media obsessed over the Azzurri’s 15-a-side fortunes, their sevens counterparts became a cold case.
Over the same period Tunisia, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Moldova, and the West Indies have all featured on the SVNS World Series more than Italy. So, too, did Niue, the Arabian Gulf, the Cook Islands, and Mexico.
The Federazione Italiana Rugby (FIR) believed supporting a sevens programme would detract from their efforts in 15s, and chose to run the programme on a shoestring budget. Just enough for the team to hold their place in the Rugby Europe 7s Championship each summer.
The FIR’s concerns were, perhaps, understandable. Between 2010 and 2025, Italy won just nine Six Nations matches, and even endured a streak of 36 Six Nations losses in a row between 2017 and 2022. In their focused attempt to improve their 15-a-side fortunes, they cast sevens aside.
But in 2026, Italy wants to put itself back on the sevens map. Beginning with HSBC SVNS 3 in Dubai.
Mastermind
The man at the vanguard of this new sevens era is 49-year-old former Italy international Matteo Mazzantini. He was one of a small but committed resistance movement of coaches in Italy advocating for sevens despite the game being sidelined by the FIR. In 2023, as the tide turned and sevens began to be taken more seriously again, he became head coach of the Italian men’s side.
An international scrum-half during the noughties – just as Azzurri legend Alessandro Troncon was in his pomp – Mazzantini’s nine test caps may have turned into many more had he been playing in a different era.
He joined Italy’s sevens programme after realising his international test career was over when Mauro Bergamasco was selected to play scrum-half in the notorious 2008 Six Nations encounter against England.
“I said to myself, ‘well they’re not going to select me again, I’ll go and play sevens’,” Mazzantini said. “But, by then I was old and although I had two great years playing sevens for Italy, at 32, I wasn’t athletically ready for that level.”
Nonetheless, when he moved into coaching after his playing career concluded, Mazzantini made sure he incorporated as much sevens as possible into his coaching of young players in the Italian national academy, and in the Veneto region.
“When I started to coach for the FIR at the academy in Turin, we would do a training session in sevens every week. It’s really important for learning the principles of rugby and it’s a game that’s very important in helping boys and girls understand situations on the field.”
Mazzantini’s belief in the benefit of sevens extends beyond the technical skills it instilled to the good it can do in reinforcing the overall spirit in which rugby is played.
“The values of rugby are very important and at times it seems like we are in danger of losing them” he said. “In Italy we are very drawn to football, and we are easily lured in the wrong direction by it as well
“In 15s, one team wins, one loses. One team is happy, one team isn’t. In sevens, 12 players from the victorious squad go home as winners. The other 110 players from the remaining 9 teams in the tournament go home having not won, but instead take home what rugby is about: the joy of playing.
“In one day of sevens, you play so many matches, you experience strong emotions: you win, you lose, there can be mistakes made by the referee, mistakes made by your team-mates, yet immediately afterwards you have the opportunity to play another match and you can overcome what’s just happened.”
Benefits
And it’s not just players that benefit from this, Mazzantini reckoned.
“There are always parents who shout, who get angry,” he said. “But the more matches they are involved in, the more they understand that refereeing mistakes can go against you, but in the next match they might go for you. Sevens delivers a sack of emotions in a single day that help regulate a more positive atmosphere, and that builds the spirit of rugby.
“This aspect is something that our federation has now understood and we are searching to amplify sevens at youth level in Italy.”
The sea change in the FIR’s approach to sevens is being backed by real action. The national sevens team now has a dedicated fleet of sponsors, and more importantly much greater access to players. In preparing for HSBC SVNS 3, Mazzantini had access to his players for a three-day training camp in December, another two-day camp in early January, and then met up again with his squad on the 9 January to make their final preparations and fly out to Dubai together.
It’s a long way from the old days of players finishing a long domestic season with their club, having two days of sevens training and then playing an international tournament.
And Mazzantini thinks that this is just the beginning. “Our aim is to have players who are professional sevens players who play for their club if they aren’t selected by us.
“At the moment, it’s the other way round: players are professionals for their club, and if they don’t play for them, they play for us. We can’t go on like this which is why, on 1 January 2026, the new objective began.”
There are plenty of grass roots initiatives accompanying the new era in sevens in Italy, such as the inauguration of a national U16s sevens tournament this summer.
The aim of which is to help narrow the geographic divide in Italian rugby, which sees far more players from the north become international players due to the better training facilities, and greater levels of investment in sport in regions such as the Veneto, Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany and Lazio.
At the elite end, Mazzantini — who hails from Tuscany — doesn’t have the luxury of being able to select a deliberately diverse national squad but still keeps a keen eye on where his players come from, with three current squad members hailing from the south: Cristian Lai, from Sardinia; and Massimo Cioffi and Flavio Pio Vaccari, both from Napoli. The rest hail from Italian rugby’s traditional northern heartlands.
So what might this squad be capable of in Dubai?
Italy’s pool features Belgium, Canada and Madagascar; while Tonga, Samoa, Colombia and Hong Kong China lurk in the other side of the draw. Except for Madagascar, every team has around a decade or more in terms of experience at the sharp end of the sevens world.
Prospects
Only the top two teams from HSBC SVNS 3 will qualify for the three-tournament HSBC SVNS 2 series in February and March. And Mazzantini isn’t getting carried away about Italy’s prospects.
“If we get to SVNS 2, then great. But if not, in June we will prepare for the Rugby Europe Championship again and try again for HSBC SVNS 3 next year. Our ambition is that in the next two to three years, we will reach HSBC SVNS 2 as a minimum.”
Italy sevens have been conspicuous by their absence from the elite end of the international arena for a decade and a half. And although Mazzantini looks forward to bringing sevens in from the cold, he can’t help but wonder what might have been, had sevens been viewed more favourably in Italy over the past 15 years.
“I think we lost a lot of time because we have qualities and a culture suited to sevens. In Italy, right from when you are born, you are improvising. If there’s a little problem, you resolve it instantly, that’s our way. And that’s like sevens. We don’t have any gameplan, we live the situation that presents itself. So, I think it’s difficult to play against us. We could have had a sevens squad at a very competitive level for a long time.”
Some form of high sorcery might be required for the Azzurri to succeed in Dubai this year but there’s no doubt Italy — thanks to Mazzantini and sevens evangelists like him — have turned a corner when it comes to taking sevens seriously.
The pot is now being stirred and at some point a potion will concoct that makes Italy re-appear as a sevens force. Just like magic.