Juventus in Shambles Again After Firing Coach Ciro Ferrara
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It’s not difficult to understand why Juventus hasn’t won much of anything for so long, its last bit of silverware dating all the way back to 2003.
Impatience, that’s the reason.
The Italian club demonstrated it once again today when it fired Ciro Ferrara as coach, little more than eight months after putting him in charge of the country’s most passionately supported club.
Getting knocked out of the European Champions League, then a spell of bad results in Serie A and, finally, ouster from the Italian Cup at the feet of Inter Milan on Thursday night, spelled the end for Ferrara.
When he was appointed Juventus’ coach in May, two games before the end of last season, he was hailed as potentially being in the same mold as Inter’s Jose Mourinho, Barcleona’s Pep Guardiola and AC Milan’s Leonardo -- in other words, a young coach who could lift the club back to its former heights.
It didn’t quite work out. Ferrara, 42, started out brightly but then lost his way. The former Italian national team defender failed to turn the club around, despite a series of big-name signings during the summer, and he ultimately paid the price.
Had he been given more time, perhaps things might have improved. Then again, perhaps not.
Juventus has named Alberto Zaccheronias his temporary replacement until the end of this season. Zaccheroni said he would like to make the job permanent, but evidence suggests there is no permanence at Juventus.
In the last decade, each of these men has had charge of the ‘Old Lady of Turin,’ and each has been shown the door sooner or later: Carlo Ancelotti, Marcello Lippi, Fabio Capello, Didier Deschamps, Giancarlo Corradini, Claudio Ranieri, Ferrara and now Zaccheroni.
That’s eight coaches in 10 years.
The talk in Turin is that Juventus has its sights set on Liverpool Coach Rafa Benitez in the summer. If true, Benitez might want to think long and hard before trading an admittedly chaotic Liverpool for the shambles that is Juventus.
But if he does make the move, at least the food and the weather will be better.
-- Grahame L. Jones