The movement of players or managers from Napoli to Juventus was quite innocuous until recently. Often it was purely for financial requirements, in other instances it was via a stepping stone.
Dino Zoff and Ciro Ferrara swapped football in the Bay of Naples for action among the Alps because their sales made monetary sense for the southern team.
Likewise, Fabio Cannavaro moved to Parma when the balance sheet looked bleak in 1995, before ending up at Juventus almost a decade later.
Then Gonzalo Higuain’s transfer three seasons ago was the first truly controversial switch between the clubs. That was the biggest story of calcio in summer 2016. But Maurizio Sarri’s appointment as Juve manager overshadows all that has gone before.
Napoli fans loved their erstwhile boss. He took over in 2015, revealing that he had been born in the city, before moving to Tuscany as a child. He defended the people of his birthplace, striking an immediate chord with the famously passionate folk living under Vesuvius.
A strong left-wing streak runs through Naples, and Sarri appealed to the Neapolitans because he was one of the masses. A worker, an ordinary guy with an extraordinary talent. He wasn’t a highly-groomed, televisual presence, or a smooth talking showman. For years he juggled a normal job at a bank with coaching lower level teams.
He was a blunt football lover in a tracksuit, eschewing commercialisation. He often looked desperate for a cigarette.
When Napoli played Juve at the San Paolo in December 2017 both sides wore alternative strips, for no reason other than to maximise Christmas kit sales. After the game Sarri said ‘I hoped to be dead before watching Napoli in black shirts play against Juventus in yellow.’
Such honesty was manna from heaven for his apostles. Banners proclaimed undying love for the coach. One such tribute said ‘Sarri One Of Us’. It was a united front from the underdogs of the south against the wealthy northern Italian powers. Groups sprang up across social media, including ‘Sarrismo- Gioia e Rivoluzione (Joy and Revolution)’. ‘Comandante Sarri’ was their noble leader.
The football was intoxicating too. Sarri’s Napoli didn’t stop Juventus extending their inevitable run of league victories, but they won new admirers across the world. Their slick, one-touch football was bewitching.
In Sarri’s final campaign, 2017/18, the Azzurri finished second with an incredible 91 points. Very good, but agonisingly, not good enough: shades of Liverpool’s magnificent effort of 2018/19.
When Sarri accepted the Chelsea job a year ago, Napoli fans wished him well. They were pleased he was getting a chance in the Premier League. When he lifted the UEFA Europa League, his first major trophy, he was cheered on by all Neapolitans.
Thirty years ago Diego Maradona received the same cup in a Napoli shirt. Sarri triumphing in the tournament was the next best thing to the Azzurri winning it themselves.
The gruff boss landed himself in hot water in defence of his players at Juve’s Allianz Stadium in April 2018. When Napoli travelled to Turin to face the champions Sarri was filmed at the front of the team bus giving the middle finger to Bianconeri supporters who were heckling him and his squad.
That kind of behaviour, plus the quality his team expressed, explains why he was so revered and adored. But that bond is now under extreme pressure. Some feel betrayed.
For decades supporters at the San Paolo have viewed Juve in a suspicious light. The teams have fought each other for the title on many occasions. Geographical and socio-economical differences have also inflamed the rivalry.
In 2016 Diego Maradona told L’Espresso ‘I regularly had the chance to go to Juventus from Napoli. Their President Gianni Agnelli invited me to choose my salary. But I turned him down. I could never have gone there. It would have been an affront to my fans in Naples.’ But the world has changed, and not everybody is so militant.
Football is a business. Players, directors and coaches are not fans. Maurizio Sarri couldn’t say no to Juventus, and this new challenge makes sense for him. He is ambitious, and as shown by his stint with Chelsea, thick skinned. He recently told Napoli fans that he ‘gave everything possible’ during his time at the club.
For any Italian in the football world, Juventus is the maximum. Less fervent Napoli fans have accepted, with heavy heart, that Sarri must do what is best for him.
Sarri’s mission will be to recreate the work of Marcello Lippi. The silver-haired, cigar smoking manager left Napoli in summer 1994 to take control of Juve. In his first spell with the Bianconeri Lippi won three scudettos and the Champions League in 1996. They haven’t been European champions since.
The consternation isn’t limited to Sarri’s old worshippers. Not every Juventus fan is convinced. The man in the ill-fitting sportswear with a cigarette butt between his lips doesn’t correspond to everyone’s view of a Bianconeri boss. Massimiliano Allegri was an impeccably well-dressed and witty man, who never took himself too seriously.
Since Allegri departed, many Juve supporters have been dreaming of a certain Manchester-based, intense and fashionably-attired Catalan in their dugout.
Examination of Allegri’s five year stretch inspires two key considerations. At first the Juve faithful weren’t impressed with his appointment.
Around 100 fans went to club HQ and sang anti-Allegri chants when he first took over in 2014. But he led them to five consecutive titles and four doubles in a row.
The other thing to recall is that Allegri’s teams, while flexible and tactically sophisticated, were not very entertaining.
Juve’s slogan is ‘winning isn’t the most important thing, it’s the only thing that counts’. But president Andrea Agnelli is acutely aware of the lure and power of exciting football.
Teams like Barcelona and Real Madrid have built huge fanbases with their swashbuckling approach. The current incarnations of Liverpool and Manchester City are earning new admirers across the globe with every electrifying performance.
Agnelli wants Juve to win, obviously, but he wants it to be easy on the eye. That will be Sarri’s task. If he can implement his fluid 4-3-3 system and maintain the flow of silverware, it will raise the Bianconeri’s international profile.
Sarri is no longer ‘one of us’ to the Napoli loyalists, and portions of the Allianz Stadium need to be persuaded that he is the right choice. In a quirk of fate, the ex-Comandante was the last visiting coach to return home from Juventus with all three points in Serie A, in Spring 2018.
The Facebook page ‘Sarrismo – Gioia e Rivoluzione’ published a long statement on Sunday afternoon. One part stood out most of all. ‘Juventus have shown they can buy almost anything that has got a price in this world. But poetry doesn’t have a price. Their partnership may be successful, but neither Juventus nor Sarri will ever experience anything comparable to his three seasons at Napoli. It’s not about results, but much more: emotions’.
Yet emotions and results are exactly what his aristocratic new employers will demand. It won’t be easy, but rough diamond Sarri enjoys doing things the hard way.