Napoli president Aurelio di Laurentiis has revealed why he sacked Maurizio Sarri and allowed the Italian to leave this summer.
The partenopei appointed Carlo Ancelotti as the club’s boss about two months ago without sacking Maurizio Sarri, who was let go of by the club after Chelsea confirmed his appointment earlier this month.
In an interview that Di Laurentiis recently gave to La Verita, he revealed why he had to get Ancelotti to let Sarri go. The Italian said: “I’m happy because Ancelotti promotes everything and everyone.”
“Argument with Sarri? If you have players with 60 million clauses and you do not play them, you damage yourself and the team, you do not use the potential and end up being out of the cups because nobody wins two competitions with twelve / thirteen players.
“I realized it was over with Sarri when he said to me: ‘I do not know if I can do better with these players.’ Sarri had entered the stage where the coach thinks high of himself. I have asked what he wanted to do this year until the last game, but I did not get an answer”.
“I noticed a certain ineducation in this silence, but I did not offend his genius and monothematic, I saw him play in one way. Let’s see what he will do in England.”
Sarri led Napoli to two second-place finishes in his three seasons in charge of the Serie A side, who named Carlo Ancelotti as his successor in May.
“It is an exciting new period in my career,” said Sarri.
“I hope we can provide some entertaining football for our fans and that we will be competing for trophies at the end of the season, which is what this club deserves.”
He is the 13th managerial appointment by Blues owner Roman Abramovich since his takeover of the club in 2003, including Jose Mourinho and Guus Hiddink on two occasions.
Sarri’s appointment had been widely expected, with Chelsea agreeing compensation to bring him to Stamford Bridge because he had two years left on his Napoli deal and had remained on the Italian club’s payroll after Ancelotti’s arrival.
Sarri never made it as a player and, unable to make a living as a footballer, he worked as a foreign currency trader at the Banca Toscana.
He was attached to the international department, which involved business trips to Europe’s financial centres, including the City of London – but the role never stoked his imagination quite like football did.
He coached part-time, hopping from one Tuscan town to another and in 2001, when foreign currency traders like him were no longer as useful to banks as Italy prepared to adopt the euro, Sarri decided to take a leap of faith and leave his well-paid, regular-hours role, for what he says is “the only job I would do for free”.
Sarri comes with a reputation as an attacking manager, with Napoli’s haul of 94 goals in the 2016-17 league campaign remaining the highest number scored in a Serie A season since the turn of the century.
In his three years in charge, Napoli scored 251 league goals – more than any other side in the Italian top flight.
He is Chelsea’s sixth Italian manager since Gianluca Vialli in 1998, following Claudio Ranieri, Ancelotti, Roberto di Matteo and Conte.
Despite his success domestically, he failed to guide the Naples club past the last-16 stage of the Champions League, finishing third in their group last season behind Manchester City and Shakhtar Donetsk.
He joined Napoli in 2015 after guiding Empoli to the top flight. Chelsea is his first managerial job outside his home country and he has yet to win a major trophy.