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Her story is incredible. Nineteen years after he left his post as a bank manager, Maurizio Sarri (Naples, 1960), wins for the first time, at 61, his first «scudetto», in the first season as coach of Juventus. Behind him he has a long career in lower categories, kicking dirt fields as a player and coach. Therefore, seeing him today at the top of Italian football causes amazement and admiration. Sarri was a modest player: left-back defense in the second category.
His professional career was at the Monte Pasqui di Siena bank, where he worked for 18 years with positions of responsibility. The bank invested in him sending him to England, Luxembourg, Germany and Switzerland, but he never abandoned his passion for football. “I was in charge of transactions between large banking institutions for Monte Paschi. Then I chose to be a coach, a job I would do for free. I have worked hard and have not come this far by chance. There are still those who call me the former employee. As if it was a fault having done something other than football, “Sarri confessed, proudly analyzing his past.
Before I brought, now tracksuit
His banking colleagues remember him as a companion with a strong character and very meticulous, virtues that have served him especially as a coach. They also remember him as a manager who liked to dress elegantly. Therefore, accustomed to always wearing a jacket and tie as a bank, it is surprising to see him today on the bench with a tracksuit and apparently neglected appearance, with his eternal cigarette butt of a chain smoker. Maybe because has transformed the tracksuit into a symbol of freedom: «I am a trainer, not a model», he has come to say.
He began training at age 21, almost by natural vocation, in the Tuscan regional divisions. In 2000, he had to make a somewhat painful decision: to leave the bank to pursue only one dream, soccer. Having been a bank marked his work: «Bank experience is an added value: I learned the value of the organization and the ability to make decisions, “says Sarri.
His work from the bench was always characterized by hard work and a mania for details. This led him to specialize in dead-ball play schemes. Hence, a journalist gave him the nickname with which he is known: “Mister 33”, due to the number of schematics usually tried with great meticulousness. The journalist recognized that the schemes were not so many, but that round number, 33, reflected very well what would end up becoming one of the most characteristic points of the so-called “sarrismo”: perseverance and meticulousness. After good results in six regional teams, he made the jump in 2000 to Sansovino, in the province of Arezzo, with which he achieved two promotions, to place him in the C2 series in three seasons, conquering the Italy Cup of series D After these good results, in 2003 he jumped to the Sangiovannese, also in the Tuscany region, where he meets Francesco Baiano, former player of Foggia, who was trained by the Czech Zdenek Zeman, beginning to speak wonders of Sarri: «He is one of the best coaches I’ve ever had.
High lines and pressure
His fame was thus transcended: At the national level, the story of a manic coach in the details, who had won half a dozen promotions in regional teams, became known. combining his job of moving millions of euros in the bank while training at night and studied his schemes with modest players.
He started another stage in 2005, which led him to train Pescara, Arezzo, Avellino, Verona, Perugia, Grosseto, Alessandria, Sorrento and Empoli, where in 2014 he won promotion to series A, with a very young team, having done a spending of 600,000 euros on transfers. Empoli applauds his football made of high lines and suffocating pressure. Sarri says that he bases his success on three gifts: «Personality. Ease of speaking. And knowledge, which makes the first two credible. Also, I study thirteen hours a day. ” And apart from being a chain smoker, he is also a chain reader. When I go to libraries, I love to smell the paper in books. I can’t love music, but I wouldn’t know how to be without books ».
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