Former player: Sarri was attached to some rituals and incredibly superstitious

Ahead of Juventus-Inter this weekend, Antonio Floro Flores has opened on his experience after working with both Maurizio Sarri and Antonio Conte at Arezzo.

“If Conte had not been sacked so early, perhaps it could have ended differently,” Floro Flores told Gianluca Di Marzio. “He needed time; it was his first experience as a coach.

“We had been struggling in the first part of the season but when Antonio was brought in to replace Sarri, he managed to have an incredible impact on the group.

“Even if it wasn’t enough to keep the team in Serie B. Maybe if he had more time…”

Sarri then arrived at the Stadio Citta di Arezzo in October 2006, to take over after Conte, and the striker remembers his “superstitious” personality quite well.

“Sarri was very attached to some rituals, he had a series of habits that he didn’t want to abandon and repeated every weekend,” Floro Flores told Gianluca Di Marzio. “He was incredibly superstitious.

“For example, he had a fixation about football boots. He wanted that we all dyed them black before entering the pitch.

“I never understood. Once I tried to explain that Adidas paid me to wear them in the League, but he didn’t want to change his mind.

“I told him: ‘Then I have to talk to the President’. He replied: ‘No, you do what I tell you’.

“But deep down, he was very pleasant. Despite being a very serious person, you could talk to him about anything.”