Curiosity. The eternal return: former black and green players in comfort zone

Il Sassuolo will inaugurate the new season of the Serie A and it will do so against Antonio Conte's Napoli (pictured above, next to Fabio Gosso), but the next season will still be a season in which the black-green club will find itself facing several big names from the benches. Above all, it will once again play against three of its former coaches who, in these parts, inevitably left their mark and who, curiously, all three are back at the starting line of the new one just when Sassuolo returns to the top division. Who? Too easy: Massimiliano Allegri, Stefano Pioli ed Eusebio DiFrancescoLet's be clear: it won't be the first time as a former player, for Sassuolo, against the three, because Allegri has already been faced several times when he was in charge of Juventus, Pioli has faced the Neroverdi 19 times now as a former player, and on the benches of four different teams (Lazio, Fiorentina, Inter and Milan) and the same can be said, even if with different numbers, for Eusebio Di Francesco, who Sassuolo has faced as a former player, among others, also with Roma and Frosinone.

The point, however, is that the trio will meet again to embrace the Neroverdi in Serie A after a year that, after all, did not allow for a situation like the current one. Yes, because while Sasusolo played in Serie B, winning it by a landslide, last season (technically, in reality, it is still the current one, which will formally end only on June 30), for example, Massimiliano Allegri spent it on the sidelines, after the tumultuous end of the relationship with Juventus, in the late spring of 2024, after the Coppa Italia final (won) made immortal by his iconic "Dov'è Rocchi?". After a year of vacation, between the cage of Livorno and the passion for horse racing, Allegri will return to the bench of Milan, as a former Rossoneri, he who coached Sassuolo in 2007-08 in C1, obtaining promotion to B, before making the leap to A. Stefano Pioli instead, last season was in Saudi Arabia, at Cristiano Ronaldo's Al Nassr: it is difficult to think of him on an Italian bench again in the very short term, also considering some fiscal aspects, and instead it will be just like that, because the coach from Parma (in Sassuolo in 2009-10, in B) will be the new coach of Fiorentina. New-old, because he too, like Allegri, will eventually return to a club he has already coached. It has not yet been made official by the Viola club, but it will be only after next July 3, because Pioli will have to remain resident in Saudi Arabia for at least 183 days in 2025 (therefore until July 2), to benefit from the tax breaks of the Kingdom.

Finally, Eusebio Di Francesco, relegated to Serie B a month ago with Venezia, will not remain in the second division with the Lagunari (who would have gladly confirmed him) but has reached an agreement with Lecce (who he had already coached in 2011), and thus the trio of former Neroverdi is completed, all in Serie A, all on already known benches.

lorenzo longhi