Maurizio Sarri - football manager

Chelsea’s former Napoli coach is 60 today

Maurizio Sarri spent more than 20 years working in
global finance before devoting himself to football

The football coach Maurizio Sarri - currently manager of Chelsea in the English Premier League - was born on this day in 1959 in Naples.

Sarri, who has an unusual background for a professional football coach in that he spent more than 20 years in banking before devoting himself to the game full-time, took over as Chelsea manager last summer, succeeding another Italian, Antonio Conte.

Previously, he had spent three seasons as head coach at SSC Napoli, twice finishing second and once third in Serie A.  He never played professionally, yet he has now held coaching positions at 19 different clubs.

Sarri was born in the Bagnoli district of Naples, where his father, Amerigo, a former professional cyclist, worked in the sprawling but now derelict Italsider steel plant.  It was not long, however, before the family moved away, however, first to Castro, a village on the shore of Lago d’Iseo, near Bergamo, and then to Figline Valdarno, in Tuscany, his father’s birthplace.

It was there that Sarri grew up and played football for the local amateur team. A centre half, he had trials with Torino and Fiorentina but was deemed not quite good enough for the professional game.

Sarri's Napoli team twice finished runners-up in
Serie A but were unable to overhaul Juventus

Instead, he focussed on a career in banking, finding employment with the prestigious Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which has a history going back more than 500 years. He was held in such high regard as a currency trader he was posted to London, Zurich, Frankfurt and Luxembourg at times.

His love of football remained with him, however, and in 1990 he began coaching alongside his high-flying day job, first with the local amateur team at Stia, a pretty town in the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, close to the sources of the Arno river.  They were in the eighth tier of the Italian football pyramid.

Sarri left Stia after one season and continued to work with small Tuscan clubs, winning promotion promotion with Faellese, Cavriglia and Antella. When in 2000 he took over at Sansovino, the team representing the historic town of Monte San Savino, near Arezzo, he was so certain he could win promotion to Serie D in his first season he vowed to quit coaching and concentrate on his banking career if they failed.

As it was, they were promoted and he decided instead to quit banking, relinquishing a good salary and job security to focus full time on football.

Sarri achieved promotion with
several small clubs in Italy

The decision looked a good one when he achieved more promotion success with another Tuscan club, Sangiovannese, whom he took to Serie C1, but less so over the following few years when spells in Serie B with Pescara, Arezzo (where he succeeded - and was replaced by - Antonio Conte, ironically), Verona and Perugia, and even a return to the lower tiers with Grosseto, Alessandria and Sorrento, yielded largely frustration and several sackings.

Sarri’s big break came in the summer of 2012 when, six months after being dismissed by Sorrento, he was hired as coach by Fabrizio Corsi, the chairman of ambitious Tuscan Serie B club Empoli, who judged that Sarri was a technically gifted coach who, given a squad of better quality than some of those he had worked with, would be able to achieve success.

His assessment was correct. Corsi backed him with some strong signings and, after just missing promotion in his first season in charge, when Empoli were beaten in the play-off final, Sarri led the team directly to Serie A at the second attempt.

After keeping Empoli safely in the top flight in the 2014-15, Sarri was taken on by Napoli, the club of the city of his birth, of which he had been a lifelong fan.  It seemed a bold choice to replace the proven Rafa Benitez but, it transpired, a shrewd one.

Having honed to perfection his fluid, attacking 4-3-3 system over the years, Napoli enjoyed three exceptional seasons. Playing the most exciting football in Serie A, Napoli set a club record by scoring 80 goals in the 2015-16 campaign, yet despite selling top scorer Gonzalo Higuain to arch rivals Juventus, surpassed it by a staggering 14 goals - the most scored by any team in one season in Serie A history - the following year.

Sarri is a heavy smoker - even during matches, although at
most grounds regulations do not permit him to do so

They did so thanks to a Sarri masterstroke, converted wide player Dries Mertens into a free-scoring centre forward so that he could invest the €90 million from the Higuain sale in other areas of the team.

Napoli were Serie A’s campioni d’inverno - the accolade given to the team top at the halfway stage - twice in Sarri’s three seasons, even though he was never able to hold off Juventus in the late stages of the campaign. His reputation received a further boost, ahead of his move to England, when no less a coach than Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola described Sarri’s Napoli as the “best team I have faced in my career” following their meeting in the Champions League.

Famously a heavy smoker - he would chain-smoke even during matches in Italy - he is married to Marina with one son. He keeps his private life quiet, spending his downtime at his villa on the Italian riviera.

Sarri's assistant manager at Chelsea is the club's former star player, the Sardinian Gianfanco Zola.

The Piazza Marsilio Ficino is the main
square in Figline Valdarno

Travel tip:

Figline Valdarno, situated in the upper reaches of the Arno valley some 35km (22 miles) southeast of Florence, is an historic town that was a major cultural centre during the Renaissance. The centre is the Piazza Marsilio Ficino, an attractive market square, at the end of which is the church of Santa Maria Assunta, which adjoins the Museum of Sacred Art, in which can be found a panel painting from the late 1400s of the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, attributed to Cigoli.  An Annunciation painted by the young Cigoli can also be found in the Chapel of the Villa San Cerbone, where the refectory contains a Last Supper by Giorgio Vasari.  L'Antico Caffe Greco, in the centre, is run by a Napoli supporter, Agostino Iaiunese.

The Loggia dei Mercanti in Monte San Savino, where
Sarri enjoyed success with the local team, Sansovino

Travel tip:

Perched on a mountain that overlooks the Esse Valley, about 22km (14 miles) southwest of Arezzo and inhabited since the Etruscan period, Monte San Savino, where Maurizio Sarri coached the local team to promotion, was the home of the notable 15th century sculptor and architect Andrea Sansovino, who lived in the town’s most prosperous era. Relics of that golden period include the Porta Fiorentina, the striking Sanctuary of Santa Maria delle Vertighe, several picturesque small churches, the Palazzo Di Monte, the Logge dei Mercanti and an impressive Synagogue. The town has an annual porchetta festival to celebrate the traditional Tuscan speciality of slow-roasted pig.



More reading:

The southern Italian roots of top coach Antonio Conte

Why Chelsea fans rate Gianfranco Zola their greatest player of all time

Ottavio Bianchi - the northerner who steered Maradona's Napoli to the club's first Serie A title

Also on this day:

987: The death of powerful Venetian Doge Pietro Orseolo

1890: The birth of silent movie star Pina Menichelli

1903: The birth of car designer Flaminio Bertoni


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Andrea Agnelli - Juventus chairman

Fourth member of famous dynasty to run Turin club

Andrea Agnelli has been chairman of Juventus
since succeeding John Elkann in 2010

The businessman Andrea Agnelli, who since 2010 has been chairman of Italy’s leading football club, Juventus, was born on this day in 1975 in Turin.

He is the fourth Agnelli to take the helm of the famous club since 1923, when his grandfather, Edoardo, took over as president and presided over the club’s run of five consecutive Serie A titles in the 1930s.

Andrea’s father, Umberto, and his uncle, the flamboyant entrepreneur Gianni Agnelli, also had spells running the club, which has been controlled by the Agnelli family for 88 years, with the exception of a four-year period between 1943 and 1947. The family still owns 64% of the club.

As well as being chief operating officer of Fiat, which was founded by Andrea’s great-grandfather, Giovanni, Umberto was a Senator of the Italian Republic.  On his mother’s side, Andrea has noble blood.

Donna Allegra Caracciolo di Castagneto is the first cousin of Marella Agnelli - Gianni’s widow - who was born Donna Marella Caracciolo di Castagneto and is the daughter of Filippo Caracciolo, 8th Prince di Castagneto, 3rd Duke di Melito, and a hereditary Patrician of Naples.

A young Andrea Agnelli pictured at the 1996 Champions
League final - the last Juventus won - with his uncle, Gianni

Andrea had a private education St Clare's, an independent college in Oxford, England, and at Bocconi University in Milan.  After university, Agnelli entered the business world, working for companies in England and France that included Iveco and Auchan Hypermarché. He also spent several years in Switzerland.

He was appointed chairman of the board of directors of Juventus by his first cousin, John Elkann, in 2010, after Elkann had come under criticism from Juventus fans for the club's poor results during the 2009–10 season.

Many Juventus fans welcomed Andrea’s arrival because of the family's historic association with the club. He is credited with turning round the club’s fortunes at a time when the financial recession and the aftermath of the infamous Calciopoli scandal were making progress difficult.

Emma Winter, the English artist
Agnelli married in 2005

He stabilised the club’s finances and, after initially appointing Sampdoria duo Giuseppe Marotta as director of sport and Luigi Delneri as coach, pulled off a masterstroke in May 20100 by hiring former captain and fan favourite Antonio Conte as new manager.

Conte, who had coached Bari to the Serie B title in 2008-09, steered Juve in his first season to their first scudetto since they were stripped of two titles in the mid-2000s as a result of the Calciopoli rulings.

Since then, with Agnelli appointing the former AC Milan coach Massimiliano Allegri to replace Chelsea-bound Conte in 2014 in a seamless change at the top, Juventus have won a record seven Serie A titles in a row, as well as four Coppa Italia titles in a row since 2014–15.

Juventus are well on course for an eighth consecutive title, having already built a lead of eight points over Napoli in the Serie A table, but Agnelli and the club more than anything crave success in the Champions League, which they have not won since 1996, when they defeated Ajax on penalties in the final in Rome.

In the 22 seasons subsequent to that one, they have been runners-up five times, twice since Andrea became chairman, in 2015 and 2017, when they were beaten respectively by the Spanish giants Barcelona and Real Madrid.

Andrea Agnelli would like to see the Champions League
established as the main competition for Europe's biggest clubs

Despite falling revenues - the club recorded an operating loss of €19 million (£17 million) in 2017-18 - Andrea authorised the signing of Real’s Cristiano Ronaldo in July this year for a fee of €100 million (£88.5 million), beating the previous record fee paid by an Italian club that was set by Juventus in 2016 when they signed Gonzalo Higuaín from Napoli for €90 million (£75.3 million).

The Ronaldo signing will eventually cost Juventus €340 million (£301 million) with the player’s salary taken into account, yet Agnelli insisted that the outlay “made sense on and off the pitch”, in a reference to the commercial revenue the Portugal star was likely to generate for the club through merchandising, and to his potential for helping Juventus achieve Agnelli’s target of winning the Champions League.

As chairman of the powerful European Club Association, a position he has held since 2017, Andrea is keen to see the Champions League overtake domestic competition as the principal focus for Europe’s top clubs, proposing an increase in the size of the Champions League and a corresponding reduction in the number of domestic fixtures.

Edoardo Agnelli, grandfather of
Andrea, ran Juventus in the 1930s

This has been driven in part by the inequality that now exists between the domestic leagues in European countries, mainly because of the huge variations in television revenue, particular compared with the Premier League in England. Juventus, despite their dominant position in Italian football, are only the 10th wealthiest club in Europe in terms of revenue.

Andrea Agnelli is married to Emma Winter, a English-born artist, designer and art director, whose clients have included United Visual Artists, Universal, Sony, Polydor, Ted Baker, Adidas, Dove, Peugeot and Panasonic.

They were married in 2005 at the church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Villar Perosa in Piedmont, with the reception taking place at the nearby Villa Agnelli, the family estate which is now the home of Marella Agnelli. The couple have two children, 13-year-old Baya Agnelli and six-year-old Giacomo Dai Agnelli.

UPDATE: Agnelli resigned as chairman and president of Juventus in November 2022 following investigations into financial irregularities at the club. He received a two-year ban from football over alleged false accounting and was suspended for a further 16 months from July 2023 when he was found guilty of fraud relating to player salary cuts during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Villa Agnelli, country home of the Agnelli family
at Villar Perosa in Piedmont in 1811

Travel tip:

Villar Perosa, where Giovanni Agnelli was born, is a small town about 40 km (25 miles) southwest of Turin.  The Villa Agnelli, the family's country house and estate there, consisting of a 45-room stuccoed rococo villa with grounds and a commanding views of the Alps, has been in the the Agnelli family since 1811. As well as Russell Page, the English landscape gardener, the Agnellis hired renowned architect Gae Aulenti to create the timbered pool house. The estate also contains a family chapel, where members of the Agnelli clan are buried.

Search TripAdvisor for Villar Perosa hotels

Juventus play their home matches at the Juventus Stadium,
which holds 41,000 people, in the Vallette district of Turin

Travel tip:

Juventus is one of the two major football clubs in Turin, the other being Torino.  Although Juventus now play at a stadium on the northern perimeter of the city in the Vallette district, the club's roots are in the city centre.  Their original ground was in what is now known as the Parco Cavalieri di Vittorio Veneto, a large green space between Corso IV Novembre and Corso Galileo Ferraris just south of the city centre, which in the late 19th century was Piazza d'Armi, an army parade ground.  Nearby is the Stadio Olimpico, now the home of Torino, which was formerly called Stadio Comunale, where the two clubs cohabited until 1990. Juventus now play at the Juventus Stadium, an ultra-modern ground with a 41,000 capacity that has been their home since 2011, and which also houses the Juventus museum.


More reading:

How Gianni Agnelli became more powerful than politicians

Marella Agnelli, the noblewoman who married into a business dynasty

Massimiliano Allegri, the coach who keeps the trophies coming at Juventus

Also on this day:

1478: The birth of Baldassare Castiglione, the author of the Italian classic, The Book of the Courtier

1586: The birth of astronomer Niccolò Zucchi

1794: The birth of 19th century opera star Luigi Lablache


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Giorgio Chiellini - footballer

Juventus star renowned for defensive excellence

Giorgio Chiellini won 97 caps for the Italian
national team but missed out on trophies

The footballer Giorgio Chiellini, renowned as one of the world’s best defenders, was born on this day in 1984 in Pisa.

Chiellini has played for much of his career at Juventus, winning an incredible seven consecutive Serie A titles from 2012 to 2018, as well as numerous other trophies.  He was Serie A Defender of the Year in 2008, 2009 and 2010 and in 2017 was named in Juventus’s Greatest XI of All Time.

He also earned 97 caps for the Italy national team before announcing his retirement from international football in 2017, establishing himself as an automatic choice in a back three or four under five different coaches.

All of Chiellini’s successes so far have been in domestic football.  He was considered too young and inexperienced to be part of Marcello Lippi’s 2006 World Cup squad and hung up his boots with the azzurri without winning a trophy.

He has also missed out so far on success in European club competitions. He missed the 2015 Champions League final, which Juventus lost to Barcelona in Berlin, and finished on the losing side in the 2017 Champions League final, when the Italian champions were thumped 4-0 by Read Madrid in Cardiff.

Chiellini has won seven consecutive Serie A titles during
a 13-year career with Juventus

But he still has hopes of winning a Champions League medal now that Cristiano Ronaldo, who scored two of Real Madrid’s four goals in that match, has joined Juventus for the 2018-19 season.

Chiellini is regarded as a character of contradictions. As a player, he has broken his nose four times and been sent off five times. When he scores a goal he pounds his chest with closed fists. He is the archetypal Italian defender - rugged, ruthless and uncompromising.

Yet away from football he is softly spoken and a lover of literature, a calm and reflective personality not given to excess or displays of temper.

He was brought up in Livorno, a dockyard city on the coast of Tuscany with a seamy side, yet was always a conscientious student and would have left high school for university had he not been occupied with becoming a footballer. In the event, after becoming an established player, he enrolled at the University of Turin, where he completed a laurea - a bachelor’s degree - in economics and commerce and a master's in business administration.

The son of an orthopaedic surgeon, he would have studied medicine but found the work involved incompatible with being a footballer.

Chiellini in action against Cesc Fabregas of Spain

Growing up, being an enthusiastic follower of the Los Angeles Lakers, he dreamed of playing basketball, before his talent for football won out.

One of twin boys, he joined his local Livorno team at the age of 13. He played as a central midfielder and a winger before settling into the role of left-back, making his senior debut at the age of 17 in 2000.

Livorno then sold him to Roma but he was immediately loaned back to the Tuscan club, before being sold to Juventus, who loaned him to Fiorentina. He finally made his Juventus debut in the 2005-06 season and was part of a title-winning team, although the prize was later taken from them because of the so-called Calciopoli corruption scandal.

Many players left the club after the scandal, which also led to the team’s demotion to Serie B, but Chiellini remained as part of the squad that won promotion under Didier Deschamps in 2006-07 and became a key element in the rebuilding of bianconeri fortunes under a succession of coaches, culminating in three consecutive Serie A titles under Antonio Conte and four more under current coach Massimiliano Allegri.

Chiellini retired from international football
in 2017 but is continuing his domestic career

Chiellini made his debut for the Italian national team in November 2004 against Finland under Lippi, at the age of 20. He scored his first of his eight goals for the azzurri three years later.

Roberto Donadoni made him a regular member of the national team, although his first call-up for a major tournament did not get off to the best start. Preparing for the Euro 2008 finals, he collided with the national captain, Fabio Cannavaro, during a training session, with the result that Cannavaro missed the whole tournament.

He made up for that with some impressive performances, particularly against the eventual winners Spain in the quarter-final, which ended in a 0-0 draw before Italy were eliminated in a penalty shoot-out.

Subsequently, Chiellini was one of the first names on the teamsheet for Lippi in his second spell in charge of the national team, and for Cesare Prandelli, Conte and Gian Piero Ventura, even though his international career did not bring him the trophies he probably deserved.

His two World Cups were disappointing, ending in early elimination for Italy in 2010 and 2014, and though Prandelli’s team reached the final of Euro 2012 they were beaten 4-0 by Spain, with Chiellini substituted due to injury.

He announced his retirement from international football after Italy failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup finals in Russia, beaten in a play-off by Sweden.

In July 2014, Chiellini married his long-time girlfriend Carolina Bonistalli at the Sanctuary of Montenero in Livorno. The couple have a daughter, Nina, born in 2015.

Livorno's elegant Terrazza Mascagni promenade

Travel tip:

Livorno is the second largest city in Tuscany after Florence, with a population of almost 160,000. Although it is a large commercial port with much related industry, and also suffered extensive damage as a prime target for Allied bombing raids in the Second World War, it retains many attractions, including an elegant sea front – the Terrazza Mascagni - an historic centre – the Venetian quarter – with canals, and a tradition of serving excellent seafood.

The Sanctuary of Montenero in the Livorno Hills

Travel tip:

The Sanctuary of Montenero, where Chiellini was married, can be found in the village of the same name, part of the area south of the city known as the Livorno Hills. The complex, now elevated to the rank of basilica and maintained by Vallumbrosan monks, originated in the early 17th century and was expanded in the 18th century before a suppression of religious orders in the later part of the century led it to fall into disrepair.  It was fully restored in the last century.  A series of grottos exist behind the church, once a hide-out for robbers and a shelter during the Second World War, but these are now closed over safety concerns.

More reading:

The story of record-breaking coach Massimiliano Allegri

Marcello Lippi and Italy's fourth World Cup

Franco Baresi - Italy's greatest defender?

Also on this day:

1742: The birth of Pope Pius VII

1988: The death of car maker Enzo Ferrari


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Alessandro Del Piero – World Cup winner

Former striker is all-time record goalscorer for Juventus

Alessandro Del Piero played for 19 seasons
at Juventus, scoring 290 goals

The retired footballer Alessandro Del Piero, who won the World Cup with Italy in 2006 and holds the club records for most goals (290) and most appearances (705) for Juventus, was born on this day in 1974 in Conegliano in the Veneto.

Regarded as one of Italy’s greatest players, his overall goals tally of 346 in Italian football in all competitions has been bettered only once in history, by Silvio Piola, who was a member of Italy’s winning team in the 1938 World Cup and who scored 390 goals in his career.  Del Piero also finished his career having scored at least one goal in every competition in which he took part.

Del Piero was a member of six Serie A title-winning Juventus teams between 1995 and 2012 and would have had eight winner’s medals had the club not been stripped of the 2005 and 2006 titles due to the so-called Calciopoli corruption scandal.

He also won a Champions League medal in 1996 after Marcello Lippi’s team beat Ajax on penalties to lift the trophy in Rome.

Del Piero played in three World Cups but was never able to reproduce his club form more than fleetingly in any of them.  He started only one match in the 2006 triumph of the Azzurri in Germany.

Del Piero leaving the stadium after his
World Cup semi-final goal against Germany

Nonetheless, he came off the bench in extra time to score the important second goal in the epic semi-final victory against the hosts.  In the final, against France, again a substitute, he scored from the penalty spot as Italy put together a perfect shoot-out to win 5-3 on penalties.

The son of an electrician, Gino, and his wife, Bruna, Del Piero dreamed of being a footballer but at one time considered a career as a lorry driver, because he thought it might provide his best chance of seeing other countries.

The family lived in Saccon, a hamlet outside Conegliano, and he played for his local youth team in San Vendemiano. He initially played in goal, which pleased his mother as she imagined there was less chance he would be injured, before he was persuaded by his brother, Stefano, that he would be wasted as a goalkeeper as he was as skilful as any of the team’s outfield players, if not better.

Stefano, who played professionally himself for Sampdoria before injury curtailed his career, went on to become his brother’s agent.

Del Piero’s first senior club was Padova, whose youth set-up he joined at the age of 13, making his senior debut aged 16 and his Serie B debut aged 17 in March 1992.  He scored his first senior goal in November of the same year.

Juventus signed him in 1993 for the sum of five billion lire and he would remain with the Turin side for 19 seasons under 11  managers, including Giovanni Trapattoni, who gave him his debut, Lippi, Carlo Ancelotti, Fabio Capello, Didier Deschamps, Claudio Ranieri and Antonio Conte.

Del Piero played for Sydney FC in Australia after
ending his time at Juventus in 2012

It was clear from the start that he was going to be a goalscoring sensation.  He scored his first goal for the club on his second appearance as a substitute and marked his first start for the senior team with a hat-trick.

When Lippi succeeded Trapattoni, Del Piero began to play regularly after Roberto Baggio suffered a serious injury, taking his place alongside Gianluca Vialli and Fabrizio Ravanelli and scoring eight goals as Juventus won the Serie A title for the first time in nine years.

There were similarities between his style of play and that of Baggio.  Both were technically very accomplished and both had the imagination to create goalscoring opportunities for themselves and others.  Gianni Agnelli, the club’s patriarchal former president, nicknamed him Pinturicchio after a Renaissance artist on the basis that his nickname for Baggio was Rafaello – Raphael – and Pinturicchio had been Raphael’s pupil.

In 19 seasons, inevitably, there were ups and downs, managers who appreciated his qualities and others who were less enthusiastic, but he inevitably retained the affection of the fans, not least when, as captain, he chose to remain with the club after their enforced relegation following the Calciopoli scandal, when many other stars left. He insisted that he owed the Agnelli family a debt of loyalty and would lead them back from Serie B to Serie A, which he did at the first attempt despite starting the season with a nine-point deduction.

It was Antonio Conte, his former team-mate, who would call time on Del Piero’s Juventus career when he announced at the start of the 2011-12 season that he would be using the player, by then almost 37, only sparingly.  Later in the season the club announced he would be released at the end of the campaign.

Del Piero stayed loyal to Juventus even
in difficult times

Nonetheless, he scored some important goals, including one, against Lazio in April 2012, that would enable them to go top of the table on the way to regaining the title.  Ironically, he had come on as a half-time substitute for Mirko Vucinic, the Montenegrin striker Conte had signed as his replacement.

He made his final appearance in a Serie A match on May 13 against Atalanta, in the last match of the season and with the title already won.  He scored – his 208^th league goal for the club – and when he was substituted he received an ovation from fans and both sets of players that went on for so long the match had to be halted as he completed a lap of honour.  There were similar scenes when he was taken off towards the end of the Coppa Italia final a few days later, his last match in the famous black and white shirt.

He played on for a couple of seasons in Australia and India on lucrative contracts before hanging up his boots for good in 2015. Since then he has pursued his interest in music – he is a friend of the musician Noel Gallagher, of Oasis fame – and done considerable work with charities.  He has made many appearances on television and is currently a regular pundit on Sky Sport Italia.

Married since 2005 to Sonia Amoruso, he has three children, sons Tobias and Sasha and a daughter, Dorotea.

One of Conegliano's ancient gates

Travel tip:

Conegliano is a town of almost 35,000 people in the Veneto, about 30km (19 miles) north of Treviso.  The remains of a 10^th century castle, once owned by the Bishop of Vittorio Veneto, stands on a hill that dominates the town.  Conegliano is at the centre of a wine-producing region and is famous in particular for Prosecco, the popular sparkling wine made from the glera grape.

Travel tip:

Padua, known as Padova in Italian, where Del Piero began his career, is a city in the Veneto known among other things for the frescoes by Giotto in the  Scrovegni Chapel and the huge 13th-century Basilica di Sant’Antonio, with its seven Byzantine-style cupolas and four cloisters. The basilica contains many notable artworks and the saint’s tomb. The town itself is particularly appealing for its arcaded streets and stylish cafes.

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Massimiliano Allegri - football coach

Former AC Milan boss has topped Conte's record

Massimiliano Allegri led Juventus to three
consecutive league and cup doubles

Massimiliano Allegri, the man who looked to have taken on one of the toughest acts to follow in football when he succeeded Antonio Conte as head coach of Juventus, was born on this day in 1967 in Livorno.

Conte won the Serie A title three times and the domestic double of Serie A and Coppa Italia twice in his three years as boss of the Turin club.

Allegri took over only in 2014 but has already exceeded Conte’s record, leading the so-called Old Lady of Italian football to the double in each of his three seasons in charge.

The 2016-17 title was the club’s sixth in a row, setting a Serie A record for the most consecutive Scudetto triumphs.

Allegri was well regarded as a creative midfielder but although there were high spots, such as scoring 12 Serie A goals from midfield in a relegated Pescara side in 1992-923, he enjoyed a fairly modest playing career which was marred by his suspension for a year as one of six players alleged to have conspired in fixing the result of a Coppa Italia tie while with the Serie B club Pistoiese.

In coaching, he followed the customary Italian route of learning his craft in the lower divisions, tasting success for the first time in 2007-08 with the Emilia-Romagna club Sassuolo, guiding the club to promotion to Serie B for the first time in their history as Serie C/A champions.

Andrea Pirlo praised Allegri's calm approach

This earned him a move to Serie A with Cagliari, where he steered the Sardinian team to ninth place, their best top-flight finish in 15 years and enough to win him the league’s Panchino d’Oro award for coach of the year for 2008-09, ahead of title-winning Internazionale boss Josè Mourinho.

Despite the award, Cagliari’s unpredictable owner Massimo Cellini relieved him of his managerial duties in April of the following year, with the team again sitting in a respectable mid-table position.

But Cagliari’s loss was AC Milan’s gain.  Appointed in June 2010, he led the rossoneri to the Serie A title in his first season, winning a place in the affections of supporters by defeating city rivals Inter in both matches.

He was not able to maintain Milan’s high level, in part due to the club’s failings in the transfer market.  They won the Supercoppa Italia at the start of the following season with another victory over Inter but lost out to Conte’s Juventus in their title defence.

In the 2012-13 season Milan recovered from a poor start and climbed from 16^th place to finish third but in January 2014 he was dismissed.

Ironically, his early success with Juventus was built around the experience and vision of the veteran midfielder Andrea Pirlo, whom Allegri had controversially deemed surplus to requirements in Milan on the grounds of age.  However, Pirlo bore no grudges and praised Allegri for the “sense of calm” he brought to the team compared with the frenetic style of Conte.

Allegri succeeded Antonio
Conte at Juventus

What has set Allegri apart from some coaches is his flexible tactical approach, with his players adept at switching systems for different opponents, sometimes changing formation several times during a match.  The constant has been a formidable defence built around Leonardo Bonucci, Andrea Barzagli and Giorgio Chiellini, often referred to as BBC.

For all his domestic success, Champions League glory so far eludes Allegri, as it has Conte.

He reached the final with Juventus in 2015, losing 3-1 to Barcelona in Berlin, and again in 2017, when a 4-1 reverse against Real Madrid was a particular disappointment after the team had conceded only three goals all told in reaching the final.  Allegri has admitted he considered resigning after the match.

Away from football, Allegri has a daughter, Valentina, by his marriage to Gloria, from whom he is divorced, and a son, George, by long-term girlfriend Claudia, with whom he is now separated after an eight-year relationship.

The Piazza della Repubblica in Livorno

Travel tip:

Livorno is Tuscany's third-largest city after Florence and Pisa and tends to be somewhat overlooked as a tourist destination. Yet it has an historic 17^th century port, which once served merchants from all over the world, reputedly some of the best seafood restaurants on the Tyrrhenian coast and an historic centre given a unique character by a network of Venetian-style canals and some elegant belle époque buildings.

Sassuolo's Ducal Palace

Travel tip: 

Overshadowed by nearby Modena, which is just 17km (11 miles) to the north-east, Sassuolo is a town of 40,000 inhabitants on the banks of the Secchia river that was once in the possession of the Este family and until the 19^th century was part of the Duchy of Modena. The title Lord of Sassuolo currently belongs to Prince Lorenz of Belgium, Archduke of Austria-Este. Hence the town has Ducal Palace, designed by Bartolomeo Avanzini.  The town has since the 1950s been the centre of a thriving ceramic tile industry, supplying 80 per cent of the Italian market.

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Andrea Pirlo - footballer

Midfielder who won multiple honours with AC Milan and Juventus

Andrea Pirlo made 119 career appearances for the
Italian national team

The footballer Andrea Pirlo, who some commentators bracket with Roberto Baggio as one of the two best Italian footballers of the last 25 years, was born on this day in 1979.

The midfielder, who left Italy to join the Major League Soccer team New York City, has played in six Italian championship-winning teams and is a double winner of the Champions League among a host of honours as a club player.

In international football he has a World Cup winner’s medal as a member of the 2006 Italian national team that lifted the trophy in Germany.  The fulcrum of the Azzurri midfield, he scored one goal and was credited with the assist for three other goals during the tournament.

One of those assists resulted in the crucial opening goal for Italy scored by Fabio Grosso in the classic semi-final against the host nation.  He was also one on Italy’s successful penalty takers during the shoot-out that decided the final against France.

He was named man of the match three times in the tournament, more than any other player.  He matched that achievement six years later at Euro 2012, when Italy were beaten in the final.

In all he won 119 caps for his country, the fourth highest total of all Italian internationals. Fellow players nicknamed him l’architetto – the architect – for his ability to design and construct attacking moves.

Although he began his career as an attacking midfielder or sometimes even a second striker, Pirlo excelled as a deep-lying central midfielder, a playmaker with wonderful vision and the ability to hit accurate passes over any distance.

Pirlo won three Serie A titles with Juventus

He also acquired renown as a free kick specialist, capable of curling the ball into the net beyond the reach of the goalkeeper. He claims he honed his technique by watching Baggio train at Brescia, the club at which Baggio wound down his career and Pirlo began his.

Pirlo was born in Flero, Italy, in the province of Brescia and began his career with the Flero youth side. He joined Brescia in 1994 and made his debut in Serie A in May the following year at the age of 16, although it took him a further 18 months to win consistent selection for the senior side.

When he did, Brescia won the Serie B title and with it promotion to Serie A in 1998. It won him a move to Internazionale of Milan but could not break into the first team permanently and was loaned to Reggina for the 1999-2000 season and then back to Brescia in 2000-01, where he played alongside Baggio, his childhood idol.

Because Baggio occupied the attacking midfield position for Brescia, manager Carlo Mazzone decided to deploy Pirlo in the deep-lying playmaker role that he would make his own. Years later, Pirlo still described the moment he delivered a long pass that enabled Baggio to score against Juventus as one of the high spots of his career.

After three seasons on Inter’s books, Pirlo was sold to city rivals AC Milan for 33 billion Italian lire – just over 17 million euro – in June 2001.

Pirlo's brilliance as a playmaker emerged
under Carlo Ancelotti at AC Milan

It was at Milan, in particular under Carlo Ancelotti, where Pirlo at last began to realise his talent and became a world class player.

Recalling Mazzone’s use of him at Brescia, Ancelotti decided to position Pirlo just in front of his defence, which allowed him more time on the ball to pull the strings in terms of setting up attacks, where he could use his, anticipation, imagination and inventiveness to best effect.

He was a key player in a period of consistent success as Italian football became dominated by Silvio Berlusconi’s AC Milan and MassimoMoratti’s Inter.

Milan won two Champions Leagues (2003 and 2007), two UEFA Super Cups (2003 and 2007), two Serie A titles (2004 and 2011), a FIFA Club World Cup (2007), a Supercoppa Italiana (2004), and a Coppa Italia (2003) during Pirlo’s time.

Baggio himself sang his praises. “Andrea can visualise and anticipate plays before everyone else. His vision, what he can do with the ball, and what he's able to create, make him a true superstar,” he said.

After Ancelotti left to become Chelsea manager in 2009, soon failing with a bid to take Pirlo with him, Pirlo remained with Milan for a further two seasons, winning the scudetto again in 2011, but new coach Massimiliano Allegri used him differently and his final season was restricted to 17 appearances for Serie A, which prompted him to seek a change of direction.

Pirlo left Juventus to join MLS
club New York City

But Milan’s loss turned out to be Juventus’s gain after the so-called Old Lady of Italian football, without a trophy since 2003 after two Serie A titles in 2005 and 2006 were stripped from them over the match-fixing scandal, signed him on a free transfer.

Under coach Antonio Conte he added three more Serie A titles (2012, 2013, 2014), as well as two more Supercoppa Italiana titles (2012 and 2013). When Conte left to become national manager, Pirlo again worked with Allegri but more successfully this time, playing his part in a league and cup double in 2015 before leaving for New York.

His final appearance was in the Champions League final – his fourth – in which Juventus were beaten 3-1 by Barcelona.

One of two children – he has a brother Ivan – Pirlo was married for 13 years to Deborah Roversi, with whom he had two children, Niccolò and daughter Angela.

His father founded a metal trading company in Brescia in 1982 called Elg Steel, in which Pirlo has a stake. A wine connoisseur, he also runs his own vineyard.  In 2013, his autobiography, Penso Quindi Gioco - I Think, Therefore I Play) – became a bestseller.

Travel tip:

Flero, where Andrea Pirlo was born, is a town in Lombardy of just under 9,000 residents, situated a few kilometres south of Brescia in the flat plain of the Po Valley, although close enough to the Italian pre-Alps for snow-capped mountains to be visible on clear winter days.  Lake Garda and Lake Iseo are a short distance away.  Flero itself is a typical northern Italian commuter town, orderly and clean with a couple of churches and a few modern shops.

Travel tip:

The city of Brescia tends not to attract many tourists compared with nearby Bergamo or Verona, partly because of the counter-attraction of the lakes.  Yet it has plenty of history, going back to Roman times, and many points of interest, including two cathedrals – the Duomo Vecchio and its neighbour, the Duomo Nuovo – and the attractive Piazza della Loggia, with a Renaissance palace, the Palazzo della Loggia, which is the town’s municipal centre.  The Torre dell’Orologio clock tower bears similarities to the one in St Mark’s Square in Venice.

More reading:

The genius of Roberto Baggio

Fabio Grosso - a career defined by one goal

How Antonio Conte led Juventus back to the top

Also on this day:

1946: The birth of actor Michele Placido

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Antonio Conte - football coach

Southern Italian roots of the new boss of Chelsea

Antonio Conte, the Italian coach who
is Chelsea's new manager

Antonio Conte, the coach who led Italy to the quarter-finals of Euro 2016 and is now first team manager at Chelsea in the English Premier League, celebrates his 47th birthday today.

Formerly a hugely successful player and manager with Juventus, Conte was born on this day in 1969 in Lecce, the Puglian city almost at the tip of the heel of Italy.

As a midfield player for Juventus, he won five Serie A titles and a Champions League. He also played in the European Championships and the World Cup for the Italy national team.

After returning to the Turin club as head coach, he won the Serie A title in each of his three seasons in charge before succeeding Cesare Prandelli as Italy's head coach.

Conte hails from a close-knit family in which his parents, Cosimino and Ada, imposed strict rules, although as a child Antonio was allowed to spend many hours playing football and tennis in the street with his brothers, Gianluca and Daniele.

He began to play organised football with Juventina Lecce, an amateur team coached by his father, but it was not long before US Lecce, the local professional club, recognised his potential and offered him an opportunity.   Juventina received compensation of 200,000 lire - the equivalent of about €300 or £250 in today's money - plus eight new footballs.

Conte quickly moved up through the Under-15s and Under-20s teams and made his senior debut aged just 16 in 1986 after Lecce had won promotion to Serie A for the first time in their history.

Antonio Conte's played his first senior football
for his home town club, US Lecce

They were relegated after just one year and Conte's career was interrupted by a broken tibia in his left leg but he fought back, as did Lecce under coach Carlo Mazzone, returning to the top flight and finishing a respectable ninth in 1988-89, the season in which Conte scored his first Serie A goal.

The move north to Juventus came about in 1991 when coach Giovanni Trapattoni identified him as a prime target and the club paid Lecce seven billion lire, which would translate to a fee of around €6.1 million or £5.2 million today.

He remained with the bianconeri for 13 seasons, playing under just three coaches - Trapattoni, Marcello Lippi (twice) and Carlo Ancelotti - often as captain, usually in a central midfield role.  He was called up by Arrigo Sacchi to represent Italy in the 1994 World Cup in the United States, in which the azzurri finished runners-up to Brazil, and by Dino Zoff for the 2000 European Championships, in which they again reached the final, although Conte could not play because of injury.

As a coach, Conte had unsuccessful stints with Arezzo, Bari and Atalanta before winning promotion to Serie A with Siena in 2010-11, joining Juventus in 2011.  Regarded as a highly talented tactician and an astute man-manager, the only area in which he has yet to make a real impact as a coach is in the Champions League.

He has been married since 2013 to Elisabetta, although they have been a couple since 2004.  They met by chance at a bar in Corso Vinzaglio in central Turin where Conte was having coffee with one of his neighbours, who happened to be her father.

Travel tip:

Lecce, renowned for the extravagance of its Baroque architecture, is sometimes nicknamed the Florence of the South but has far fewer tourists, mainly because it is almost at the bottom of the heel of Italy and difficult to reach.  The ruins of a Roman amphitheatre are preserved in the city centre but most of the buildings are 17th century in origin, including the sumptuous Basilica di Santa Croce.

The Palazzo Madama in Turin's Piazza Castello

Travel tip:

Turin, the city of Juventus, is the capital of the region of Piedmont in the north of Italy. It has had a rich history linked with the Savoy Kings of Italy and there are many impressive Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo buildings in the centre, notably around Piazza Castello, where visitors can find the Royal Palace and the Palazzo Madama, which used to house the Italian senate.

More reading:

Marcello Lippi - World Cup winning coach

How Arrigo Sacchi changed Italian football

Dino Zoff - the World Cup's oldest winner


(Photo of Antonio Conte by Nicola Genati CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of Palazzo Madama by Geobia CC BY-SA 4.0)

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