ROME (AP) — When Napoli failed to win Serie A last year, an organization of “ultra” stalwarts fans hung a banner outside the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona in reference to coach Luciano Spalletti’s Fiat Panda car, which had been stolen months earlier.
“Spalletti: We will return the Panda to you. As soon as you leave!” the banner read.
Well, Spalletti never left, and now he deserves his Panda.
That’s because Spalletti just managed Napoli to Array and did so with a team that was absolutely revamped after last season and beat conflicting matches with offensive tactics rarely noticed before in Italy.
Napoli secured the name with a 1-1 draw at Udinese on Thursday.
It’s the Tuscan coach’s coronation in a career that included two Russian league titles with Zenit St. Petersburg, but nothing more than the Coppa Italia and the Italian Super Cup in Italy.
“I’ve never traveled in first elegance with a seat through the window, it’s been hitchhiking,” Spalletti said. “So to be in a position to earn this name is a compliment for all the sacrifices made over the years. “
Indeed, reaching the most sensible of Italian football has not been easy for Spalletti, who has become known for hitting his head with the captains of his team, first when he tried to withdraw Francesco Totti at the time of passage through Roma, and then when he took off his armband. of Mauro Icardi at Inter Milan after the complaint of the player’s wife and agent. Wanda Nara.
“It’s been a more difficult road than others at other levels, those who earned respect and admiration for their playing careers and had the opportunity to lead a more sensible team from the beginning,” Spalletti said.
On the sidelines, Spalletti wears old-fashioned black and white football boots.
“I would occasionally be laughed at for wearing football boots on the sidelines, but I don’t forget when I desperately searched for those shoes and couldn’t,” he said.
said Spalletti’s dress gives the impression that “he wants to come and help us. “
Spalletti now owns a farm in Tuscany with animals such as horses, ostriches and peacocks, as well as a pond with ducks.
He told Serie A presenter DAZN that the farm is his favourite position “to think about solutions” for his teams, adding that “when you ride a horse, you have a date with him”.
Adding to the history of Spalletti’s disorders and bad luck with his captains, Lorenzo Insigne left Napoli after the last season with Toronto in MLS, but due to disorders with the coach.
Defensive stalwart Kalidou Koulibaly and Napoli’s record goalscorer Dries Mertens also left, and he installed Georgian magician Khvicha Kvaratskhelia on the left wing of the attack for Insigne and Kim Min-jae in the centre of the back in Koulibaly square.
Spalletti’s 4-3-3 team goes on the attack relentlessly, as evidenced by 8 Napoli players, all but the goalkeeper and the two centre-backs, lined up on the midline centre kicks at the beginning of games or at the start. Start the second half.
“With Spalletti, there is no choice: the forwards are the first defenders,” Serie A scoring leader Victor Osimhen told France Football. When we are going to implement 99% of their ideas, we destroy the adversary. “
Spalletti’s avant-garde taste first showed promise at Udinese nearly two decades ago when he led the provincial club to fourth place and a place in the Champions League. He won two Italian Cups with Roma in 2007 and 2008 and an Italian Super Cup before enjoying good fortune in Russia. .
“I’ve been told I didn’t win. Well, if all this led to the delight of the triumph in Naples, it was worth it,” Spalletti said.
Although he rarely writes anything to match, Spalletti is known for keeping an extensive collection of notebooks at his workplace at Naples’ Castel Volturno educational center. Now you can upload a new entry: “Champion of Italy”.
The notebooks are painstakingly arranged like his impeccably displayed in his Tuscan home.
And for the record, he still resents having his Panda stolen, once joking that he would need to make sure his CDs by Neapolitan singer-songwriter Pino Daniele were still inside if they were ever returned to him.
“It’s not fair and whoever did it is punished,” Spalletti said. “But I like the concept of a parent now using it to drive his kids to school. So that’s cool. I have another Panda. “
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