RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 1 sources🤯 Maldini hits out at Malagò: He picked the Italy coach! Pirlo and...
Paolo Maldini is back to tell his side of the story.
Interviewed by Corriere della Sera , he went over what happened in recent weeks, focusing on the decision to leave his role as the National Team’s technical director after Malagò vetoed the choice of Pirlo as head coach, and more besides ( HERE ARE THE WORDS OF THE FIGC PRESIDENT ).
AN IMPOSSIBLE CHARACTER - "I don’t know. Others judge me; and you can’t please everyone. I care about doing things properly. And I care about saying things clearly. The people who have worked with me, my teammates, my colleagues during five years at Milan as an executive, know me well. If a man who tries to assert his role and defend his duties is uncompromising, then I am uncompromising. If a person who takes responsibility, who tries to win and to accept defeat, is uncompromising, then I am uncompromising. But I have one advantage, which comes from my 25-year career. I’m not attached to the job. I feel very free in my choices. Thank God I have no financial needs. What leads me to accept roles is the possibility of carrying them out, of making my contribution. I’m sorry that this is seen as arrogance or inflexibility. But if I am identified as the person responsible, I feel duty-bound to be exactly that."
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR - "Malagò called me at Easter, saying: there’s a possibility I could become president of the FIGC; you are the person I would want with me. I told him I was available. In football, for me, there are only two things: Milan and the National Team. Then I didn’t hear from him again. The day before the election, Malagò called back: tomorrow we vote, there’s a good chance, I’d like you on board. I replied: let’s talk about it. He asked me to become president of Club Italia. It wasn’t just about relaunching the National Team. Italian football had to be rebuilt."
LEONARDO - "I share friendship, values, and principles with him. Leo has great organizational ability, as well as a great understanding with me. So that’s how we began. And we came up with a new role: technical director. The technical director has never existed in the National Team’s organizational chart: the coach reported directly to the president. But that wasn’t right: the coach needs someone to discuss things with. Then the terms were revised; consequently, the only thing to do was resign. Or rather, decline to sign the four-year contract that was supposed to start on August 1."
THE HEAD COACH - "In fact, the first thing I asked was: who chooses the head coach? Malagò replied: you decide on the coach, and I approve it. That was the agreement. Then events led to that changing."
AN 8-10 YEAR HORIZON - "At the League I explained our project, centered on two different tracks. Rebuilding Italian football takes time. Developing new talent and a new mindset is a long process. It required creating a new movement involving all the federal components: Serie A, Serie B, Serie C, amateurs, the coaches’ association, the players’ association, the referees’ association. And then there was the other track, or if you prefer the other train, which had to move much faster: because in less than two months we play Belgium, Turkey and France in the Nations League. We had to prepare for tomorrow, but also do well today. And start winning again."
NAMES - "Pirlo? Our idea was tied to technique. To attacking football. To change. In Italy we’ve fallen behind in many areas. We wanted young players’ development to be based not on tactical obsession but on technique, one-on-one play, and an attacking mindset. And we wanted a young coach who had a history with the National Team. There were three names. Daniele De Rossi and Fabio Grosso. Three world champions. But the president told us that, based on the agreements that brought him to election, with the support of all clubs except Lazio, we could not touch the coaches of Serie A teams. So De Rossi and Grosso were ruled out. We did make one call to the greatest Italian coach ever, my very close friend Carlo Ancelotti. He told us that Brazil had reiterated its complete confidence in him, and he said goodbye wishing us the best of luck. It was a call we had to make."
GUARDIOLA - "He is the coach who most embodies technical and attacking football. Through a few friends he had expressed the idea of coaching a national team. We went to see him in Barcelona, had lunch together, and talked for an entire day. He was very tempted. He came very close to accepting. He even started writing lineups on sheets of paper... Did he ask for 20 million? Absolutely not. Money was never an issue. Pep told us clearly: give me one euro less than the last head coach earned, and I’m fine. He turned it down because of fatigue. Guardiola is coming off ten grueling years in the Premier League. He had back surgery. He wants to rest. But it was a very serious discussion, we studied the squads from the Under-17s upward... So then we moved on to Andrea. Malagò knew everything, we kept him informed step by step."
PIRLO - "This is a personal view. We wanted a young coach, someone who embraced the project and had a top-level career. Technically, when I talk with Pirlo, I find him extremely well-prepared. Supported by a technical director and an advisor, he would have been the ideal coach. What résumés did the last two coaches who won the World Cup, Scaloni and De la Fuente, have? If everything is seen as tied to the coach sitting on the bench, then you’re looking only at today, never at tomorrow. And we are coming off three failed qualifications. The Russian betting agency? That certainly played a part. We didn’t know about it. Public opinion did its job. But legally there was nothing that could have prevented Andrea from coaching the National Team. Was it a pretext? I would say yes. It was certainly exploited in an absolutely exaggerated way...
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