Walter mazzarri is sat on a bench with the aid of the pitches at watford’s schooling ground writing out the tale of his first few years in control line by using line, from the bologna teens group thru distinct clubs in serie c2, serie c1 after which to serie b, wherein he received promoting with livorno to serie a and moved on again.
It has been a splendid upward thrust for the fifty four-yr-vintage, who is writing the list at a pace that his interpreter can slightly keep up with.
At reggina in 2006-2007 his team finished 14th in serie a despite a fifteen-point deduction for the club’s element in the calciopoli scandal, later reduced to 11. “it was like they gained the scudetto,” he says, “they made me an honorary citizen of the town.”
From there it become on to sampdoria and a coppa italia very last for the club for the first time in 13 years, and thence to napoli, in which he enjoyed his finest triumphs. He restored neapolitan pride of their battered antique membership, taking them to 0.33 location in 2011 and then 2d years later. They gained the coppa italia in 2012, beating powerful juventus within the final, the best recreation antonio conte’s group lost all season.
“all the ones golf equipment and i've in no way been sacked,” he says. Aside from inter milan, i challenge. “other than inter,” he replies with appropriate grace, “however we don’t speak about inter.”
You could see why the pozzo circle of relatives, the owners of watford, taken into consideration mazzarri an amazing guess to hold the membership in the optimal league for a 3rd successive season. He has consistently outperformed expectations at a chain of under-attaining clubs. When it came to inter, he become dealing with at a difficult time within the membership’s history and got them to 5th location in his one complete season there.
Mazzarri certainly looks the part, the type of italian man who could no longer bear in mind leaving the residence with out a pair of aviator sunglasses. He smokes marlboro blues, and pretty a lot of them, however at least, in contrast to some in soccer, he does now not try to disguise that specific weak spot. After all, there is a lot to study in his new task. It is most effective thursday when we meet and there are already 3 new players at watford that week.
Nowadays he is up towards arsène wenger, whose arsenal squad educate just over the hedge from watford at their adjoining ground at london colney.
Mazzarri has had a protracted street to his vicinity inside the optimal league of 2016, there have been some bumps along the way, and he has needed to combat for each yard.
His playing career turned into long but exceedingly undistinguished and there's regret at a bad knee injury while he was approximately to make the leap into the fiorentina first team in 1982. Nevertheless, he did have a serie a career as a midfielder, his first-class period at empoli, and he performed while the league was unarguably the best in international soccer. Mazzarri became up in opposition to the exceptional expertise money ought to buy.
“maradona, zico, matthäus, van basten, gullit, rijkaard, baresi, rummenigge – i performed in opposition to all of them,” he says. “it was the exquisite explosion of italian football. Of path the great was maradona, after which zico. I used to be playing towards maradona once at the san paolo and that i thought i could see the ball and i may want to get it. As quickly as i challenged for it, the ball become long gone and i took him out. Eighty thousand humans in the stadium wanted to kill me.”
His playing career ended around the lower divisions and he needed to paintings his manner up in coaching, too, through the necessary direction on the coverciano academy, the italian football federation’s university for italian football managers.
He's passionate about coverciano, and the importance of the 3 years that he spent there. He says the route is tough to get directly to and once you are there, you're anticipated to examine hard. “the very last 12 months is the masters – the technical, the psychological. They prepare the manager for the complete revel in. To control the players, to cope with the pressure. They train you ways to talk to the president of the membership and the way to speak to the fans of the club. It's far as a lot approximately conversation as something else.”
It turned into again in naples that he had the maximum fantastic instances of his profession. He took over within the summer of 2009 with the crew having completed 12th the season earlier than, and finished sixth, third, fifth and 2nd in the subsequent four years, winning the coppa italia in 2012. It turned into the pleasant length inside the club’s records because the maradona technology and underneath mazzarri they went into the cutting-edge champions league for the primary time.
“after I arrived i found a team with problems, and the gamers weren’t widely known at the time. However we grew collectively, and in that very last year we had a huge conflict for the league with juventus [eventually finishing second, nine points behind them]. There has been a variety of strain. Napoli supporters stay for his or her team each day. It’s now not just at the stadium. You can be filling your automobile up at the petrol station on a monday and they all need to speak about the team.”
Wherever he has been, mazzarri feels that he has nurtured right attacking players, and he expects to do the identical at watford. He lists them – cristiano lucarelli at livorno; rolando bianchi and nicola amoruso at reggina; antonio cassano at sampdoria after which edinson cavani and ezequiel lavezzi at napoli. Cavani turned into a winger until mazzarri converted him into certainly one of europe’s first-rate strikers.
All through his time with napoli in the champions league, mazzarri’s facet beat manchester city within the organization ranges and won the primary leg of that final-16 tie towards chelsea three-1 in february 2012 earlier than succumbing four-1 at stamford bridge after the sacking of andré villas-boas. The competitor in mazzarri has nevertheless not forgotten. “they scored when we had a player down injured,” he says, “we had no good fortune.”
His 17 months at inter milan were the only time when he has no longer been able to enhance the fortunes of the club. It was a time of transition while former owner massimo moratti turned into promoting, the influential argentine element within the squad changed into moving on and the dressing room changed into now not a glad location. Mazzarri had became down a brand new agreement at napoli to sign up for inter.
After watford’s defeat by gillingham inside the efl cup this week, mazzarri turned into unforgiving of his gamers. He is a hard man, and he units excessive requirements. You do now not make the progress he has without telling it instantly.
“i’m like a father to my gamers,” he says. “now and again you need to be tough, on occasion you want to be very first-rate and speak to them. They are like sons to me and that is the way i manipulate. When they make me irritated, i’m indignant. I can’t cover that.”
He got a flavor for english soccer on those champions league nights in england. He's a pal of swansea city manager francesco guidolin from their days collectively at bologna. He known as claudio ranieri to seek his opinion before he took the watford process. In england, he might not be as famous as the leicester metropolis supervisor, but in italy he has labored a long term for this second.
