Aurelio De Laurentiis regrets choosing Rudi Garcia as Napoli coach

Aurelio De Laurentiis, the owner and president of Napoli, returned this Friday in an interview with Corriere dello Sport on the express passage of Rudi Garcia on the bench of his team. The French coach, fired on November 14, was not his first choice.

“The first contacted was Thiago Motta,” he declared. I saw it pretty well, right (his Bologna team is currently fourth in Serie A)? But he didn’t feel like coming. For what ? Because it’s not easy to take the legacy of someone who won the Scudetto that way. »

As he had already declared in October, he then contacted Luis Enrique, before he joined PSG. “He brought his entourage to Naples. He blocked me for three days asking me for a lot of money. We almost reached an agreement, then he said no because he wanted to win even more. Next, Nagelsmann. I looked at five or six of them. » Finally, he will therefore turn to the former coach of OM and Roma: “In the end, I went to Rudi Garcia who, in Italy, had come second twice with turbulent locker rooms, full of high level players. »

“A person who arrives and says: ‘I don’t know Napoli, I haven’t seen a match…’ I should have understood. While I preferred to laugh about it”

Aurelio De Laurentiis, president of Napoli

De Laurentiis claims to have noticed his mistake immediately. “On the day of the presentation, I should have pulled a stunt and said, ‘Here he’s introduced, but now he’s leaving.’ Because a person who arrives and says: “I don’t know Napoli, I haven’t seen a match…” I should have understood. While I preferred to laugh about it. The problem is that he repeated it several times. All you had to do was play the same game as Spalletti. Rather than doing that, he preferred to have me fire a perfect trainer, to bring in another who… I was warned: “He’s going to shoot you players.” I had to stay at the training center from morning to evening. »

Rudi Garcia was dismissed after 16 matches on the bench of the reigning Italian champion, for a record of 8 wins, 4 draws and 4 defeats. He was replaced by Walter Mazzarri, who has had 3 wins and 4 losses since his return.