By Yusuf Adua
The old lady, Juventus, has relieved head coach Maurizio Sarri of his job as the head coach of the club after the team bowed out calamitously to Lyon at the round of 16 of the champions league. Even though Several names have been mooted but we gathered that no cogent move has yet been made for a successor.
The tie was a walk in the park on paper for the Turin giants but they failed to progress to the quarter-finals of Europe’s premier club competition leaving the club with no choice after the continental disappointment.
Juve’s signing of Cristiano Ronaldo from Real Madrid was a clear indication that the intention was to win the Champions League after several years of near-misses but it appeared that the 61 year_old Europa league winner is not the right man for the job.
A club statement read: “Juventus announces that Maurizio Sarri has been relieved of his post as coach of the first team”.
The club immensely thanked the coach for having written a new page in Juventus’ history with the victory of the ninth-consecutive championship, the culmination of a personal journey that led him to climb all the divisions of Italian football.”
Even before the UEFA champions league decider, Sarri’s future had been overly called into question despite leading the club to a ninth-successive Scudetto, with the former banker admitting himself that he had been struggling to impose his famous ‘Sarriball’ style on the star_studded side.
Sarri stated that his charges had been moving the ball too slowly but that he would continue to work on his players until “sooner or later this concept will get into their heads”. But the reverse was the case because the Juve board didn’t have enough time to wait. The board considered their options, with the feeling amongst those in charge that the head coach had failed to win over the players and that a new approach would be required to see the club progress in the near future.
It is a widely held view that Simone Inzaghi is well-liked by those at Continassa following his successful season with Lazio, Zinedine Zidane still under contract with Real Madrid even though they lost to The Citizens. Another prospective candidate is Mauricio Pochettino who is currently out of work despite having led Tottenham to the Champions League final last season.
Former Juve head coaches Massimiliano Allegri and Antonio Conte have also been talked about alongside club legend Andrea Pirlo, who recently took on his first coaching role with the Bianconeri’s Under-23 side. But all in all, this is just the nursery stage of the whole discussion.