08/08/2020 - 9:59
- Clarín.com
- sports
"The day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at 5.30 in the morning to wait for the ship in which the bishop was arriving," said Gabriel García Márquez at the beginning of Chronicle of an announced death. No one but him knows what time Maurizio Sarri got up this Saturday, but few were those who doubted his future. And it didn't take long for confirmation: Juventus fired him just hours after being eliminated in the knockout stages of the European Champions League at the hands of Lyon.
“Juventus announces that Maurizio Sarri has been relieved of his position as first team coach. The club wants to thank the coach for writing a new page in the history of Juventus with the victory of the ninth consecutive Scudetto, the culmination of a personal journey that has led him to climb all categories of Italian football, "the institution reported in a short statement posted on your website. It did not surprise almost anyone.
"Now we need a cold and lucid analysis, then we have to start again with renewed enthusiasm and the desire to win," said Andrea Agnelli, president of the Turin club, after the elimination of the Champions League. In his words there was a flavor of sentence for Sarri, who had arrived at Juve 14 months ago. In this period he won the Serie A title a couple of weeks ago, but he never finished convincing the players and the leadership.
Argentine Mauricio Pochettino looms on the Juventus horizon. Photo: Reuters
With the former Napoli and Chelsea coach out (he had a contract until June 2022), there are several names that are heard as possible replacements and there is little time that the Juve priests will have to make a decision, since the next Italian league season will begin on September 19.
According to what was reported by the Turin newspaper La Stampa, the directors of the Italian multi-champion already made contact a few weeks ago with Mauricio Pochettino, who has been unemployed since Tottenham fired him in November last year. The greatest difficulty that would arise in this case would be economic. According to Gazzetta dello Sport, the claims of the Santa Fe (between 10 and 12 million euros) would be well above what Juventus would agree to pay.
Zidane was already a Juventus player. Photo: AFP
Another man who appears in the folder, but whose arrival appears, a priori, complicated is Zinedine Zidane. The Frenchman has a guaranteed job at Real Madrid until June 2022, but more than once he was cryptic about his continuity. He even did it on Friday, after the elimination of the Champions League against Manchester City.
“We will see what happens next season, now is the time of rest. I'm here and I'm the Real Madrid manager until something happens. We don't have to think about anything, I'm still from Real Madrid, ”said the Frenchman, who has accumulated 11 titles with the Spanish club, including three in the Champions League, Juventus's great obsession. It is clear that it would not be cheap to get it to land on the Turin bank.
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