Now it's official: Chelsea released Maurizio Sarri, who immediately became the new Juve coach. For him, however, the difficult part now comes because the Juventus fans – and with them the Stock Exchange – have hoped until the end for a miracle and that is that a phenomenon like Pep Guardiola would arrive on the bench of the multiple Italian champions. When the Juve management divorced Max Allegri, plan A aimed precisely at Guardiola, but the condition for the coup to take place on the bench was that Manchester City was excluded from the Champions League for failure to comply with financial fair play. When it was clear that the operation was not feasible - at least for this season - Juve activated plan B, turning on the sixty-year-old Sarri, a coach who is very far from the Juve style and until recently really poor in trophies: the first one he won just a few weeks ago by winning the Europa League with Chelsea.
It is true that in the summer of 2014 the arrival of Max Allegri, who took over from the much loved Antonio Conte, was not welcomed with enthusiasm by the very demanding Juventus fans, but then the unknowns about the new coach were certainly less than today. And the results proved it.
There are five main questions that Juventus players ask themselves about Sarri:
- Will the new Juve coach fully assimilate the old motto of the Juventus president Giampiero Boniperti who said: "It's not important for Juve to win, but it's the only thing that matters"? In short, playing well is nice but winning is even better.
- with a very high outlay, Juve bought Cristiano Ronaldo last year, the strongest footballer in the world together with Leo Messi, but to make the most of CR7's potential, you need to build a team around him: Sarri is clear how to make Cristiano play and how to get the whole team to play?
3. Is Dybala compatible with CR7? Max Allegri failed to integrate them and now Juve is at a crossroads: either give the Argentine or try to relaunch him near CR7 but how will Sarri do?
4. who will control the game of the new Juve in midfield? In Naples and Chelsea Sarri had relied on Jorginho but in Turin will he focus on Pjanic, Ramsey or Pogba (in case he returns)?
5. Sarri has always played in the zone: will he also do it at Juve despite the close-knit defensive pairing Chiellini-Bonucci are used to man-marking? It's not a far-fetched question, because at the age Chiellini and Bonucci are, they would struggle to reconvert, unless Sarri dusts off Rugani and waits for Marquinos. But how would the locker room react?
In short, there are many doubts, but of course the verdict is up to the field. If Sarri performs the miracle of winning the Champions League on his first attempt at Juventus, all the fans will be at his feet. Otherwise it will be sparks.
