Maurizio Sarri was born in Naples in 1959 but spent most of his childhood in Florence,
Tuscany.
His father, who was born and raised in the region, moved back when Sarri was young to
work as a crane driver, and the family followed.
Sarri was brought up in the Figline Valdarno commune, where he lived above a bar and learned
to play football on the streets.
As a youngster, he was not overly gifted with the ball at his feet.
Instead, he was attracted to the analytical, tactical side of the game.
That Sarri chose to pursue a career in football was not inevitable: he came close to opting
for cycling instead, having turned out for local team Pedale Figlinese.
His father had been a professional cyclist for two years.
But Sarri did, in the end, choose football, and set his sights on one day representing
his boyhood club.
At his Tuscan school, he had been the only Napoli fan amongst his friends, but that did
not dampen his enthusiastic support.
As a player, Sarri was a defender and turned out for local amateur side Figline.
He had trials with Torino and Fiorentina but failed both, and soon after retired, citing
injury problems.
Having struggled as a player, Sarri turned to the world of finance and got a job as a
banker at Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the world’s oldest bank.
He had studied accountancy and excelled in the job, travelling around Europe, from London
to Luxembourg.
Banking was Sarri’s day job but it was not fulfilling, and the urge to remain in football
was strong.
So he went into coaching, taking over at a number of amateur clubs and investing all
his free time in his development as a manager.
He worked at Stia, Faellese, Cavriglia and Antella – who he guided to promotion from
the Italian sixth tier – during the 1990s.
It was hard work but Sarri did not want to give up on his dream of coaching at the highest
level.
The banking was significantly more lucrative, too, but Sarri found more reward from coaching.
And he always preferred wearing tracksuits over suits.
In 2001, while coaching Serie D side Sansovino, Sarri finally quit his job as a banker to
focus solely on football.
It was, he said, “the one job I would do for free”.
He had made progress but still had a long way to go.
He was not deterred, though, and continued to work tirelessly in pursuit of his end goal.
“A tough life is getting up at six in the morning to go to a factory,” he said, perhaps
with his father in mind.
At Sansovino, a small club based in Monte San Savino, some of Sarri’s idiosyncrasies
began to come to the fore.
One day, while pulling into the stadium in his BMW shortly before a game, Sarri accidentally
hit a car belonging to one of his own players.
Sansovino won the game, and so the following weekend, Sarri hit the same car, this time
deliberately.
Again, Sansovino won.
He became known as ‘Mr 33’, having supposedly prepared no fewer than 33 set-piece routines.
“We used four or five of them in the end,” he later said.
Such stories point to his almost obsessive approach, and his attention to detail stood
him in good stead for his eventual rise up the leagues.
Sarri threatened to quit coaching for good if he did not win the title with Sansovino
but, fortunately, that is what he did.
From there, he moved on to third tier side Sangiovannese in 2003, where he won promotion
in his first season.
Then, in 2005, he got his first Serie B job, with Pescara, in itself a commendable rise,
before moving after one year to Arezzo, to replace the sacked Antonio Conte.
He could not prevent Arezzo’s relegation from the second tier, but offered more than
a glimpse of his managerial talent.
He oversaw an improbable 2-2 draw in a cup tie against Juventus and ran Milan close in
the quarterfinal of the Coppa Italia, with a 2-1 aggregate defeat.
It seemed Sarri’s upward trajectory would continue, although for the following few years
he found himself flitting between jobs in the second and third tiers: he had brief spells
at Avellino, Perugia and Alessandria.
In 2012, what seemed a low point led to the break Sarri needed.
He was sacked by Sorrento and taken on by Empoli, then in Serie B. He guided the club
to promotion, playing a brand of thrilling, high-intensity football that attracted countless
admirers.
Finally, at the age of 53, Sarri had reached Italy’s top flight.
Empoli impressed in Serie A and Sarri’s reputation began to rise.
Napoli’s president, Aurelio De Laurentiis, was one of those enamoured by Sarri’s style
of play, and so he appointed him in 2015.
From there, Sarri went from strength to strength: his astonishing rise was completed.
In the summer, Sarri replaced Conte once again, this time at Chelsea.
It is a remarkable ascension.
While Pep Guardiola was leading Barcelona to La Liga and Champions League success, Sarri
had yet to reach Italy’s top flight and was still very much an unknown figure in the
world of football.
Now, the two are equals and set to battle each other in the Premier League.
That, in itself, is some achievement.