Interview with Rsi Sport. «They call me an integralist but I’m a quick-change player: I try to adapt my ideas to the players I have. Football needs to be saved by itself “
Udine 23/07/2020 – Serie A football championship / Udinese-Juventus / photo Image Sport in the photo: Maurizio Sarri
Maurizio Sarri was interviewed by Rsi Sport for the Domenica Sportiva. The statements of him.
«For me, football is a falling in love with me since I was a child. The passion comes from the fact that it is a team sport. At least I consider it a team sport, even if in recent years in the media much more emphasis has been given to individuals than to the team. It is a sport to organize. Only rugby has the same organizational characteristics as football: it is played on a field with extremely large dimensions and many players. This fact of rationalizing the players’ movements is a great passion, but I also enjoyed playing ».
«It is apparently simple, perhaps for individuals, then in reality coordinating 11 players on a field is not really easy, it takes organization. Victory? Victory is certainly important to give vigor to ideas. However, I believe that if you are able to play football that is fun for the viewer, this is also more satisfying from the point of view of results. It can go wrong in the short run, not in the long run. To win, in recent years, you have to go to certain clubs and certain teams. Top-level players still make a difference. Once the economic differences between the teams in Serie A were a few billion, today they are hundreds of millions of euros. Economic inequality always leads to the same teams winning, this can be seen in all the European championships ».
“Anyone who only knows about football knows nothing about football,” Mou said.
«And I agree because 90 minutes you spend on the pitch are a parody of life. There are exhilarating moments, difficult moments, moments where you can win or you can lose, as it normally happens in a lifetime. Knowing life stories also helps you in football ».
She reads a lot. What are you looking for in reading?
«I seek personal pleasure, first of all. I have a lot of thanks to the teachers I had, who allowed me to do different paths from those that are normally done at school. I was a bit bored at school, and so they allowed me to read many things that I liked. Reading is a moment of leisure but also of strong enrichment. I think I also need it for my job. The ease of language that reading so much can give you can also affect your profession ».
Dostoevsky said that beauty will save the world… and football too?
«Football needs to be saved by itself and by its own institutions. We are going on a path where it is impossible to propose beauty. If you play 60 or 70 games a year – including the Nationals – it is clear that you no longer train and produce a fun show becomes more and more difficult. We are in a phase in which this sport is experienced as a business, instead it became a business when it was experienced as a sport ».
Bukowski in one of his novels makes one of his characters say «never trust those who go around in overalls».
“From the few photos I’ve seen of Bukowski he was in worse shape than in a suit. But I have such great admiration for Bukowski that I forgive him everything. My clothing? Sometimes I see matches of the Primavera, played in unlikely fields, with the coaches in social uniform and I honestly laugh. I do a field job, I don’t see what’s strange about going to the pitch in a suit, it’s the most natural thing in the world. When I was working in finance I used to wear a suit and tie but on the pitch I go in overalls. Unfortunately, appearance matters more and more, it is something ridiculous. It is not that football has gone in this direction, it is the world that has gone in this direction ».
Money.
“Money in football as in life helps you, then happiness is another story. Are there immoral figures in football? How immoral the world today is, from so many points of view. If an actor takes $ 30 million for a film it is immoral but there is probably an economic return that justifies it. I consider it unfair but this too is part of the world we live in today ».
If working in the bank helped him.
«I always say that the managers I see in football in a normal company would be fired after a few months. And therefore having been part of another world in which you really have to slaughter yourself in order to open your way helps you, certainly ».
The child in the footballer.
“I always try to trigger a way of playing football that never turns off the child in the player, that leads the player to be in contact with the ball very often, because contact with the ball is the reason why everyone we started playing football. The ball-man relationship is an eternal relationship, it gives us this sense of fun ».
What did you think when the term “sarrismo” ended up on Treccani?
“That everyone had lost their minds.”
Cycling.
«If I had to choose between the Champions League final and Paris-Roubaix, I would definitely look at cycling. Cycling is a real sport. While remaining an individual sport, I see that even there the team is counting much more than individuals. The strong singles are seven or eight and in the end between them comes out who has the strongest team. It is a real sport, it is a tough sport, it involves great effort. A truly ferocious passion is needed. Unlike football, the big salaries are reserved for seven or eight runners, the rest run for normal salaries. I have great respect for those who practice this sport and seeing it gives me great satisfaction. Beyond the fact that I come from a family of cyclists … “
His way of working.
“If you set yourself a goal that is too simple, you are too easily satisfied. A goal must be important, almost impossible, perhaps a utopia in such a way as to always go to bed not happy, with a certain dizziness. Only in this way do you feel obliged to improve every day ».
The culture of football in Italy.
«It is a particular country. At a sporting cultural level we are not in great shape. In Italy there is more cheering against opponents than for one’s own team. This speaks volumes, I have not seen similar behavior in England. Coaches are not educators, at least at our level. At the youth level I can also agree. At our levels you are dealing with one-man companies with a million dollar turnover, so it is difficult to become an educator. Me as coach I try to pass messages, values. Team sport is made up of values. “
Who is Maurizio Sarri.
«I am someone who tries to improve himself every day. They call me an integralist but I have done all the modules, I believe that it is absolutely not true. If you ask me for a definition, I can tell you that I am a quick-change: I try to adapt my ideas, which I do not give up, to the characteristics of the players I have at that moment.
Sarri: “Between the Champions League final and Paris-Roubaix I choose cycling”