Maurizo Sarri : from finance to football

Maurizio Sarri’s journey from managing Italian amateur sides to taking the reigns at one of England’s biggest clubs is a remarkable story.

Sarri was born in Naples in 1959 but spent most of his childhood in Florence, Tuscany. His father, who was born and raised in the region moved back when Sarri was young to work as a crane driver and the family followed.

Sarri was brought up in the Figline Valdarno Commune where he lived above a bar and learned to play football on the streets. As a youngster he wasn’t overly gifted with the ball at his feet instead he was attracted to the analytical tactical side of the game.

That Sarri chose to pursue a career in football was not inevitable, he came close to opting for cycling instead having turned out for local team Pedalee Figlinese. His father had also been a professional cyclist for two years, but Sarri did in the end choose football and set his sights on one day representing his boyhood club Napoli.

At his Tuscan school he’d been the only Napoli fan amongst his friends but that didn’t dampen his enthusiastic support.  As a player Sarri was a defender and turned out for local amateur side Figline, he’d had trials with Torino and Fiorentina but failed to impress and soon retired citing injury problems.

Having struggled as a player Sarri turned to the world of finance and got a job as a banker at Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the world’s oldest bank. He’d studied accountancy and excelled in the job travelling around Europe from London to Luxembourg. Banking became Sarri’s day job but it wasn’t fulfilling enough and the urge to remain in football was strong so he went into coaching.

Sarri took over at a number of amateur clubs investing all of his free time in his development as a manager. He worked at Stia, Faellese, Cavriglia and Antella who he guided to promotion from the Italian sixth tier during the 1990s. It was hard work but Sarri didn’t want to give up on his dream of coaching at the highest level.

The banking was significantly more lucrative too but Sarri found more reward from coaching and he always preferred wearing tracksuits over suits.

In 2001 while coaching Serie D side Sansovino Sarri finally quit his job as a banker to focus solely on football it was he said “the one job I would do for free.” He’d made progress but still had a long way to go but he wasn’t deterred and continued to work tirelessly in pursuit of his end goal. “A tough life is getting up at six in the morning to go to work in a factory” he said, perhaps with his father in mind.

At Sansovino a small club based in Monte San Savino some of Sarri’s idiosyncrasies began to come to the fore. One day while pulling into the stadium in his BMW shortly before a game Sarri accidentally hit a car belonging to one of his own players. Sansovino won the game and so the following weekend Sarri hit the same car, this time deliberately, again Sansovino won.

He became known as Mr. 33 having supposedly prepared no fewer than 33 set piece routines. “We used four or five of them in the end” he later said, such stories point to his almost obsessive approach and his attention to detail stood him in good stead for his eventual rise up the leagues.

Sarri threatened to quit coaching for good if he didn’t win the title with Sansovino but fortunately that’s just what he did. From there he moved onto the third tier side Sangiovannese in 2003 where he won promotion in his first season. Then in 2005 he got his first Serie B job with Pescara in itself a commendable rise before moving after just one year to Arezzo to replace the sacked Antonio Conte. He couldn’t prevent Arezzo’s relegation from the second tier but offered more than a glimpse of his managerial talent.

He oversaw an improbable 2-2 draw in a cup tie against Juventus and ran AC Milan close in a quarter final of the Coppa Italia with a 2-1 aggregate defeat. It seemed Sarri’s upward trajectory would continue although for the following few years he found himself flitting between jobs in the second and third tiers.

In 2012 what seemed a low point led to the break Sarri needed. He was sacked by Sorrento and taken on by Empoli then in Serie B. He guided the club to promotion playing a brand of thrilling high intensity football that attracted countless admirers. Finally at the age of 53 Sarri had reached Italy’s top flight.

Empoli impressed in Serie A and Sarri’s reputation began to rise. Napoli’s President Aurelio De Laurentiis was one of those enamoured by Sarri’s style of play and so he appointed him in 2015.

From there Sarri went from strength to strength. His astonishing rise was completed. He led Napoli to a second placed finish in his first season runners up only to Juventus. His second season in charge saw the I Partenopei finish third but his third and final season in charge proved heartbreaking. They set a new club record for points in a single Serie A season, finishing with 91, though this would only be good enough for second place behind champions Juventus, with 95.

In the summer of 2018 he replace Antonio Conte once again this time at Chelsea. It’s a remarkable ascension, while Pep Guardiola was leading Barcelona to La Liga and Champions League success Sarri had yet to reach Italy’s top flight and was still very much an unknown figure in the world of football. Now the two are equals battling each other in the Premier League.

Sarri’s route to the top proves it’s never too late to chase your dreams.