Maurizio Sarri played the game and won. Now at Juventus, will he cement himself at the top?
There is something deeply charming in Maurizio Sarri’s uncharming persona. An unbelievable story that somewhere got lost in translation, and in a small part did so because of Chelsea’s self-absorbed existence. This is not a dis on the club, others can be just as bad and just as good, yet there’s something unique about them in that regard. That’s why they’ll, culturally, perhaps be “better off” with Frank Lampard. But back to least season. A staggering (prolonged) start to season that they had no business accomplishing made them keep pace with Manchester City and Liverpool at the top of the Premier League. Sarri was doing it. Then something got twisted, something turned the wrong way, and so much of it came crashing down. It did so to a horrible point, but they survived, and more pertinently, Sarri did so as well.
It feels close and far away at the same time, but more than anything, that moment at Wembley, where Kepa Arrizabalaga refused to be substituted, where Sarri almost walked out the door but turned back at the last second, just seems absolutely preposterous. It did then and it does now. Chelsea didn’t win, but they got through it. In no small part because a breathless Tottenham team showed up a few days later at Stamford Bridge to allow them to get back on track at their expense. With help from someone who could, could, follow Sarri’s footsteps to Turin: Kieran Trippier. But regardless if that materializes or not, what has done so is the former banker’s signing for the most domestically successful team in Italian history. He does so now after finally winning that first major trophy. He was able to find the way to regain control of the ship in west London and all the way to Baku, Azerbaijan, to lift the Europa League, dismantling Arsenal. An Arsenal team that was there right the beginning of Sarri’s tenure in England, in a marvelously thrilling game that saw Chelsea come out on top; then again halfway through the season to beat the Blues and really start to plant the seeds of doubt in the Italian and at the end, where he ended up having the last laugh. And a moving smile as the contemplated his Europa League-winning medal. He had finally done it.
Yet no one gets from where he started to here without a flooring ambition. He had it, and he employed once again to get the Juve job. It was too good to pass. And possibly, Chelsea were too hard to keep trying. Not only they were going to (and did so) let Eden Hazard go once and for all to Real Madrid, they were not going to be able to replace him with anyone other than Christian Pulisic. On the flip side, the serial Serie A champions have the elite superstar, the ability to go to the market and sign players, and also an already more solid squad. Not just in relative terms to their competition in Italy, but in terms of potentially capturing the holy grail, the Champions League, in twelve-months time. Because Juventus’ time is now. It may not pan out how they want it to, but it’s their time. And they know it won’t last forever. So they are gonna go for it. Massimiliano Allegri was mostly fired for being good at his job. But you can understand why they did it. They gave it a very thorough go — though it didn’t end up with them being champions of Europe. After five solid tries, they decided to experiment with another formula. Sarri is that formula. And thankfully they got him, because they kind of let Allegri go with no one they would’ve wanted obviously available. Guardiola was not gonna leave Manchester for them, Pochettino was not gonna leave Tottenham for them. But in the man in the tracksuit they got their unintentionally-eccentric coach. That someone to give them that new edge.
They would only become PSG if they don’t win the Champions League and because of it kick Sarri to the curve. There is that risk of becoming a self-caricature in the relentless pursuit of continental glory. But for now, Juventus are on track. And with their team intact to keep at it. Though the question now lies within them and with Sarri: will they mesh just like such a good team inevitably should? Some, and possibly too many, do question it. But good coaches and good teams tend to work out well. More so when the gap is as huge as it is between them and the rest of Italian football. Yeah, Antonio Conte has landed at Inter, that’s very nice. But it’s likely not enough to close the distance in a year’s time. If for no other reason than… “come on, it’s Inter”. But the possibility does exist nonetheless. And the chemistry will be more than intriguing to witness play out at the Allianz Stadium. There’s the thrill, because irrespective of win or lose, the culture shock will happen. A team that wins, tend to get stuck in its ways. To be fair, they are taking the risk of throwing this sort of wrench into things in hopes that it gets them over the line. But Sarri is different to Allegri and is different to Conte. A coach through and through that will, perhaps, add that extra piece to his puzzle and master the craft of managing the endless intangibles an elite-level-squad requires. This is not Empoli, nor Napoli, nor even Chelsea, where the bumps in the road where significant, yet hardly relevant when they finished third in the league and Europa League champions.
As much of a cliché that it can be, and as overblown as it can be, the whole “how will Ronaldo fit” into the suspected new paradigm is something that is true, that is a more than valid question. But is possibly, again, a little over-exaggerated through the idea of the overly-methodical coach. Eden Hazard had perhaps his best season ever. Good coaches, for as many quirks as they can have, for as confusing or unsettling as their ways can be, tend to find the way to make it work. They didn’t get to where they did because of being some sort of mad genius that will only produce results under the right circumstances. Sarri has worked hard, Sarri is smart, and this is bound to succeed more than it is to not. However, all those stimulating questions and factors are all there in some way. And one that might not have that big of a level of consequence but is interesting nonetheless, is the fact that Gianluigi Buffon is coming back.
I mean, what? Holy cow… He was gone, it was over, the chapter had come to pass — yet, apparently there was still another one left. As mildly anticlimactic it was to not see him retire in Turin and, furthermore, go to another European giant in PSG, to a direct rival of sorts taking the Champions League race into account, it seemed just bonkers. It is certainly not expected for any questions to arise regarding a goalie in Wojciech Szczesny that has really seemed to reach, in the past year, that next level that so many hoped he would. In some senses, Buffon already went into a kind of weird goalkeeping landscape in Paris, where he was kind of the starter, but also kind of not. The alternating role that Kevin Trapp played in years passed juxtapose to Alphonse Areola was filled by the Italian. He was brought in for his experience, yet he was the one, fulfilling somehow the weird curse that seems placed on PSG in the Champions League, who messed up when it mattered most against Manchester United. However, overall, he did seem to do really well in his mentoring role. Which one would suspect he will also play now back at Juve. He seems comfortable in it and that should work in Sarri’s favor. Unless things turn sour, and he becomes one of those leading established players that further disrupts things. But it should be okay.
Then again, with Napoli and Chelsea for the last four years, it’s not like Sarri doesn’t know what he’s doing in the murky waters of football at its highest levels, even if Juventus is in someways the ultimate step-up. But it is also because they have the better players. Managing a greater team doesn’t come only with more pressure, but, indeed, also with that mirroring step-up in quality of players. None more obvious than a defensive line that will be remembered as one of the best of its generation, if not of all time. At least in terms of Italy. It has changed, going through different iterations, yet it seems to have not changed one bit through it all. Because a lot is what they have been through. And that might be now the only, or at least the biggest, of the questions surrounding them. Although it might not even reach the heights of a “concern”, as none other than Matthijs de Ligt seems like he could also be on his way to come through the door. The trio of Andrea Barzagli, Leonardo Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini, is one that has stood the test of time, even if finally Barzagli has been one to say goodbye. Bonucci did so, in his own way, two years ago to only come to find that not all pastures are greener elsewhere. Or at least not at AC Milan. In another one of those eyebrow-raising 180º turns, Bonucci was back within a year. But if de Ligt does end up arriving, and if Sarri keeps true to his signature and unaltered line of four defenders, one of either him or Chiellini will have to make way. At least from the general playing-all-the-freaking-time status. Other than that, Alex Sandro is there for the left fullback position and Joao Cancelo at the right. Or is he? With apparently ever-growing interest from Manchester City, the possibility of him going and Kieran Trippier coming in to replace him would be all sorts of awesome.
All jokes aside, Trippier, even after his rough post-World Cup season, does seem like the kind of sneaky, effective and kind of misunderstood player that could work well with Sarri in Italy. But even if the Cancelo money would cover to sign him, there’s de Ligt and maybe (but most likely not) even Pogba. Theoretically Juve don’t have this kind of money, so something will have to give, there will be a compromise to be had. Or not. But leaning towards logic, a name that had been thrown around all the way to his signing this past Monday, is that of Adrien Rabiot. And Adrien Rabiot for free is the most Juventus thing ever. Because it is in midfield were things seem like they could really take off for Sarri. To heights of colossal ilk. You have to look no further than Miralem Pjanic to find “Jorginho”. A player, the Bosnian, who seems on the cusp of really coming into his own and possibly, as the superb Spanish-speaking football analyst Miguel Quintana has suggested, become one of the dominating midfielders of the European football landscape. Add to him and the Sarri system Rabiot and Aaron Ramsey. I’ll tell you what that is: that is good. Very, very good even. Three silky, ultra-technical footballers — to a point, Ramsey less so — that have all the potential in the world to make Juventus able to run over opposing center-fields all the way to the mountains they so badly want to climb and conquer. And because for all the smoothness that Pjanic and Rabiot would offer, Ramsey would potentially complement that ever so perfectly with his startling offensive poise. But the Sarri kingdom will have more than just them in it. A lot more. Right now they still have the if-somewhat-diminished-with-time-still-octopus-like Blaise Matuidi, as well as the promising Uruguayan international Rodrigo Bentancur and the Germans, Emre Can and Sami Khedira. Sarri might not know what to with all that depth (see “Mateo Kovacic for Ross Barkley or Ross Barkley for Mateo Kovacic”) or how to maximize to its full potential, but it’s there — it is most certainly there.
Just as is the crowning jewel, the unbreakable and unmissable all-incumbent superstar that Juventus banked on hard: Cristiano Ronaldo. He’s one of the best to ever do it. And, out of the blue, the Bianconeri came across the opportunity to get him. They did, and now it’s showtime. How it will all be assembled as far uncertainties go remains truest in the team’s frontline. 4–3–3 has been the leading formation among them all for quite some time, which should should ease things in the Sarri-Juve clash of worlds. However, the added, or at least differing, nuances will be enough to drown in. Yet, much of it one would suspect will be directed straight, or sort of straight, in the direction of setting-up their own Portuguese luminary. He who’s glare can bend on-the-pitch-realities to his will and force his team into following rounds of the Champions League. The squad had been thoroughly pushed around in the first leg of the round of last-sixteen in the latest edition of the tournament against Atlético Madrid. While Sarri seemed on the brink of Chelsea-extinction, Juve did so as well, 2–0 down, only for a Cristiano hat-trick to blow your mind through sheer determination and win three to two. But it could not overcome it all, as much as Ronaldo would believe otherwise. Miles ahead of a Napoli team that could not repeat under Carlo Ancelotti the feats of the previous season, with Sarri leading the way for them to a thrilling title race with the northerners, whom this time were not able to gauge through the league the flaws within them — and were trounced in the quarter-finals by an Ajax team with too much spunk and finesse for the street smarts of even Juve to match. And that why Sarri’s now here. To regain, to infuse, the virtuosity of Ajax and of much of his Napoli teams, into a team that wants it. Badly. We’ll see how badly.
The shift to the 4–3–3 that Cristiano seem to inspire with his arrival, violently displaced a Paulo Dybala who was coming off a stellar season. In many ways stuck in football’s most recent trend that has seen pure number “10's” such as him lose sway in favor of the attacking-midfield/interiors, wingers and striker positions. Still, despite his lack of positional-flexibility the Argentinean has proven his quality even if it just in small bursts, and, if they are to incorporate further signings, he seems like someone that could really benefit a different team, as well as Juve with his selling fee. However, it doesn’t lay with Dybala the key to figuring out the team’s attacking assembly under the Neapolitan coach. Regardless of whether Dybala stays or goes, in Federico Bernardeschi, Juan Cuadrado, Douglas Costa, Moise Kean and Mario Mandzukic they still have a more than formidable supporting cast up front. In more senses than one, Cristiano, despite being a player of accentuated differences, already occupies a similar conceptual role to that of the left-winger-pushed-further-forward-to-a-more-central-position that Sarri orchestrated more than once with Eden Hazard (to no overwhelming success, to be fair) and essentially in a permanent capacity with Dries Mertens at Napoli. Gonzalo Higuían broke the single-season goal-scoring record in Serie A history under Sarri. Napoli, however, reached their most excellent version afterwards with Mertens. Though the profile is different this time, as previously mentioned, maximizing the quality of attacks through Cristiano should not biggest of all the challenges.
But for the ultra-methodical Maurizio, with the detailed passing game and the predisposition to fervent attacking pressures, a duo such as Cristiano-Mandzukic might prove at step too far to pull-off on a consistent basis. Two big and established players, even if still hard-working, who’s dexterity could be outmatched more than once by the likes Kean and Bernardeschi for example. A Bernardeschi who seems, for all intents and purposes, to have beaten Dybala and Cuadrado to punch for that third attacking spot. With the Colombian being a recipient of significant starting minutes after him, too, leaving Chelsea for Juve back in the day, the fact, amongst others, that he’s not most virtuous player nor best decision-maker has chipped away at his status. And furthermore, what would do so as well is the potential signing of a keen Federico Chiesa from Fiorentina. Through injury and overall diminished production, Costa became less of a factor in the most recent season and the trend one could suspect to remain fairly similar, even if he’s to continue on at the team. The exciting Bernardeschi, after seeing Sarri elevate the game’s of his wingers at Napoli, should do nothing but keep ascending on his way to stardom. As is the case with the undeniable promise of the also Italian international Moise Kean. With the characteristics of a potentially great striker, finding the best chemistry between him, Cristiano and the rest of offensive line, should be a fruitful quest for the setter of Juve’s new paradigm.
One that has and will continue to come at the expense of what was an almost-perfect legacy and goodwill left behind in Naples. However, as much as that will be true, it was extremely refreshing to see Napoli’s official channels post a light-spirited video that filmed many fans throughout the city giving their parting message to Sarri. Because it was one thing for him to leave and go to Chelsea, after sort of being pushed out the door, or rather “displaced” by the signing of Ancelotti previous to the confirmation of his departure, even if he too was not keen to continue. But it is another thing entirely to go to the place, to only the team has stood between them and Serie A glory in three of the last four seasons. He tried so hard to win it with them, with Napoli, but it was sadly never to be. But Sarri coached before Napoli and Napoli were coached before Sarri. It is understandable for him to want to grab on to an opportunity that may never again come around this good. After an enthralling year in many ways if also glaringly lacking in overall harmony, it was Sarri’s time to go and take a swing at a level presumably out of reach for Chelsea in the near future, even if they eventually had been able to forge a lasting relationship. One as easy as that of Sarri and Jorginho. After two different cities, two different countries and four years together, it is time to say goodbye for them. At least for now, as someone on Twitter wondered if Sarri had told Jorginho he was going only going out for a pack of cigarettes. Taking into account that Sarri himself revealed the other day that he smokes three of them per day, it would be rather believable for Jorginho if that would have been the case. But regardless of that funny side note, it is the case that Maurizio Sarri, the guy who worked at a bank and with one small Italian team after the other, that got slowly bigger and better each time, will now coach Italy’s most popular team, one Europe’s most iconic clubs. One that will be different without the traditional strips on their new shirt and with their eccentric new manager, who got all the way here to prove he is one of the best. It will be different, indeed, but possibly, also a success story.
