The champions are on the bench

Mourinho, last Thursday during the Trabzonspor-Roma of the Conference League.

That things were going to get complicated, Antonio Conte already knew in May. Just as Inter had just won the first scudetto, after 11 years of drought and nine painful titles in a row from Juventus, the first warning came. The coach, an expert in exploring the economic and psychological resistance of the clubs that hire him, settled his ear on the train tracks and detected the runaway problem that was coming upon them. Then he announced that he was leaving it only two years after taking the reins of the Milanese team. He knew there was no lyre and it was time to sell to the stars. And that would also happen to all clubs. But his resignation, far from being a drama, generated a domino effect on the Italian benches and the return of some old rockers who, in the absence of big stars on the grass,draw the spotlight in the league that started this weekend.

Just a year ago, six of the first seven classified in Serie A confirmed their coach: there was project, stability and confidence. Now, five of those same teams have had to change it: Inter, Juve, Roma, Napoli and Lazio (Atalanta and Milan will not touch anything). The most famous comeback is signed by Massimiliano Allegri in Turin. A close friend of the president, Andrea Agnelli, rejected Real Madrid this summer and preferred to return to the club where he raised five scudetti in a row. He has to deal with the decline of Cristiano Ronaldo, an aging team and a club at odds with the rest of the Serie A assembly because of the Super League. Allegri has achieved the signing of Locatelli (one of the great Italian talents along with Federico Chiesa) and little else. His main rival (Antonio Conte),the man who he himself succeeded at Juve and who could now dispute the league, has retired before starting.

Conte's departure also detracts from the morbid arrival of Mourinho in Rome, where he lands like a Martian in a club at the antipodes of everything he is and what he has trained. Yes, the team he referred to with the famous phrase "zero tituli" when he was on the Inter bench. Now he laughs at that: clean slate of the man who achieved the last Champions League with Inter and who as soon as he arrived in Trigoria threw a dart at his old club. "We will make a sustainable team, not one to win the scudetto and then sell to all the stars." Mourinho will return the brawl to the press conferences, attract the spotlight on Roma and allow the team to dream of some unattainable signings (he has signed Abraham from Chelsea, goalkeeper Rui Patricio and Uruguayan defender Viña). But Rome can be very cruel and,if things go wrong from the start, you'll be scalded in what could be the last throes of a declining career.

Napoli, which did not achieve the goals set by its president, Aurelio de Laurentiis for Genaro Gattusso, have opted for Luciano Spalletti (ex-Roma). And Inter (4-0 against Genoa), without a coach and after getting rid of Lukaku and Achraf, has been entrusted to the technical criteria of Simone Inzaghi, who coached Lazio. The Roman club also had the domino effect unexpectedly and he saw his prodigal son pack his bags - its president, Claudio Lotito made a fool of himself by assuring that he would continue - and called Maurizio Sarri to take a step forward. The Tuscan coach - tough on the street and sophisticated on the pitch - revolutionized Naples years ago and was about to achieve the Maradonian feat of a scudetto. Then he went through Chelsea and gave Juventus a league,But his style of play is far from that practiced by Lazio (3-0 against Empoli) and he will have work to transform a team that has not won the scudetto since 2000, when the laziale checkbook was bottomless. A time when the stars of Serie A were on the field and not just on the bench.

You can follow EL PAÍS DEPORTES on