In the early hours of August 8, Juventus narrowly beat Lyon 2-1 in the last sixteen of the Champions League, however, due to the loss in the first leg, the two sides drew 2-2 on aggregate. Lyon advanced on away goals, while Juventus announced the following day that manager Maurizio Sarri had been sacked, just one day after former Italy international Andrea Pirlo took over the reins.
The news shocked the soccer world as Juventus have not had a head coach for just one year since 2011. This nine-year run of nine consecutive Serie A titles is due to a stable coaching staff. This season, the epidemic and many other variables make Juventus face challenges, Sarri's dismissal may be related to his coaching style can not meet the expectations of the senior management. But surprisingly, Juventus did not give Sarri to stay a year, and even announced his dismissal the day after the Champions League match, which seems quite decisive.
Earlier gossips had rumored that Sarri's future would not be affected regardless of Champions League promotion or not. But now it seems that this may have been a misunderstanding and perhaps Juventus have long decided to sack Sarri and no Champions League result will change their decision.
It's rare that a team will announce the sacking of their manager immediately the day after a Champions League loss, and in less than eight hours time-wise. Usually a giants like Juventus only announce the sacking of a current coach once a new coaching candidate has been found or largely negotiated. Pirlo, in fact, had only been Juve's U23 coach for 10 days when he was promoted to the position of first team manager, which is certainly an unexpected turn of events.
I think Juventus have been discussing Sarri's future for a long time, and might have given him another year, but a Champions League loss or a pre-season accident forced Juventus to fire him. Juventus didn't decide on the next manager, so they promoted Pirlo, who has no coaching experience, to take over, probably because the next season will start in September, which is actually only a little more than a month left, that's why they are in such a hurry.
Sarri has not had a good year in charge, starting with his hospitalization for smoking-induced pneumonia before the start of the season last year, which led to Juventus' poor record in the first month of the season. This was followed by the new Champions League pneumonia epidemic, which resumed with poor results. It was rumored that Sarri did not have a good relationship with stars such as Crowe, which may have been the main reason for his dismissal. This season, Juventus has 26 wins, 5 draws and 7 losses in Serie A. Compared to the past, the number of defeats has increased significantly, which had a great impact on Juventus, which was once caught up or even surpassed by Inter Milan. If not for the direct defeat of Inter in the Derby della Nazionale, this season's title would have been unpredictable. For Juventus, which has been pursuing stable points, too many defeats or inability to turn draws into victories, Sarri is naturally no longer the best candidate in the minds of the executives.
All in all, Sarri's coaching this season didn't bring too much change to Juventus, he gave me the feeling of normal coaching. Sarri didn't help Juventus turn things around when facing tough opponents or complicated situations, but rather Crowe and Dybala turned things around with their individual abilities. Sarri's favorite Higuain has not been at the top of the scoring charts this season (32 appearances), which is actually proof that Sarri's tactics have failed to work at Juventus.
Juventus' new boss, Pirlo, needs little introduction, as it is well known that the midfield maestro played for Brescia before joining Inter Milan, but initially did not perform well in attacking midfield. He was later loaned out to Regina and Brescia, and upon his return, AC Milan decided to buy him. Carlo Ancelotti, who was AC Milan's manager at the time, decided to transform him into a back-rower, forming the strongest back-rowing partnership in Italy's history with Gattuso (now Napoli's manager). He went on to win the Champions League twice with AC Milan, was runner-up once, and won the 2006 World Cup for Italy.
Pirlo then moved to Juventus, where during his four years there, Pirlo won all of the Serie A titles in that period as the center of the midfield and led Juventus to one Champions League final (2015), where he was runner-up (so he reached four Champions League finals in his career, winning twice). He then went on to play in the United States, retiring in 2017.
Pirlo took some time off after his retirement and only recently started to devote himself to coaching. He has just returned to Juventus to start leading the U23s, not realizing that Juventus would fire Sarri at this point and it is clear that Juventus has not found their next head coach. Generally speaking, as the U23 coach of the giants is actually the list of future managerial candidates, this is usually the reserve managerial seat. Juventus seems to let Pirlo coach the U23 team first to accumulate experience, and then later promote him to the head coach, I did not expect the change to come so quickly, and now Juventus directly promote him to the head coach.
