Lazio has appointed former Juventus coach Maurizio Sarri as their new manager on a two-year deal till 2023. The Italian head coach will be replacing Simone Inzaghi, who joined Inter Milan a few days ago. The 64-year-old manager had previously managed Napoli, Chelsea, and Juventus. He won the Europa League with Chelsea. After returning to Italy, Sarri won the Serie A title with Juventus in 2019/20 season, but he was sacked by the Bianconneri after they were eliminated by Lyon in the round of 16 of the Champions League.
Sarri first made a huge impact in Italian football when he was the manager of Napoli as his side almost won the Serie A in the 2016-17 season, finishing second with 91 points. Lazio also confirmed Sarri’s appointment after intense negotiations over the last couple of weeks.
📕 𝐒𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐦𝐨 𝐬.𝐦.: 𝙻𝚊 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚣𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚍𝚎𝚕 𝚐𝚒𝚘𝚌𝚘 𝚍𝚎𝚕 𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚌𝚒𝚘 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚞𝚐𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚍𝚊𝚕𝚕’𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝙼𝚊𝚞𝚛𝚒𝚣𝚒𝚘 𝚂𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚒, 𝚏𝚘𝚗𝚍𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚜𝚞𝚕𝚕𝚊 𝚟𝚎𝚕𝚘𝚌𝚒𝚝𝚊̀ 𝚎 𝚕𝚊 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚘𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚟𝚊 pic.twitter.com/hb47j20DQN
— S.S.Lazio (@OfficialSSLazio) June 9, 2021
The Italian manager is often lauded because of his modern style of football and his unconventional rise to the top level in football. He has never played a professional football game in his life and was a banker instead. The Italian deploys a 4-3-3 system where he plays a high defensive line and his philosophy is to move the ball quickly with incisive passive, which is popularly termed as Sarriball.
Sarri’s philosophy is very different from the previous manager in charge at Lazio as Inzaghi used a very defensive approach. It has been widely reported in Italy that Sarri wants to bring two players from his former clubs after being appointed as Lazio’s manager. He is interested in signing Ruben Loftus Cheek and Matteo Politano from Chelsea and Napoli, respectively.
According to Forbes, Sarri earned €6 million during at Juventus but he was sacked after just one season. Juventus had to pay a severance package of €2.5 million to Sarri. During his one-year stint at Chelsea, Sarri earned €6 million. He is likely to earn slightly less than his previous salary at Lazio.
Lazio finished sixth in Serie A last season and had booked a spot in Europa next season. They were knocked out in the Champions League by Bayern Munich in the first knockout rounds. The battle of Rome is set to be between two former Chelsea managers as Lazio’s city rivals AS Roma hired Jose Mourinho in May.