Giorgio Squinzi had a lot on his mind over the weekend. The Sassuolo owner’s term as president of Confindustria, the Italian employers’ confederation, was at an end. After four years representing the interests of some 148,000 companies – with more than five million combined employees – he needed to ensure a smooth handover to his successor.
But you can be sure that he still kept a close eye on Sunday’s football scores.
With three games left in the Serie A season, Sassuolo were seventh in the table and just one point behind Milan. In the likely scenario that the Rossoneri lose the Coppa Italia final against Juventus this month, then finishing sixth would be sufficient to qualify for Europe.
For Sassuolo, that would be a historic achievement. This is a club who had never even played in the top flight before their promotion in 2013. One representing a town whose entire population would fill barely half the seats at San Siro.
They have Squinzi to thank for their ascent. Owner of the Mapei group, a manufacturer of building materials with a roughly €2bn annual turnover, he sponsored Sassuolo on and off during the 1980s and 1990s but in 2003 bought them outright. The club were operating in Serie C2 – then the fourth tier of Italian football – but within three years secured their first promotion. They have not looked back since.
This is not the classic story of a billionaire owner throwing his financial weight around. Sassuolo’s wage bill this season is roughly one quarter the size of Milan’s. Their success has been built on careful planning and a sound business model, plus some savvy coaching appointments.
It was Massimiliano Allegri who led the team up from Serie C1 to Serie B back in 2008, before becoming a Scudetto winner with Milan and Juventus. Sassuolo struggled for a few years to find an adequate replacement, but in 2012 appointed another young Italian manager by the name of Eusebio Di Francesco. Four years later, he is being touted as one of the sharpest footballing minds on the peninsula.
There is nothing revolutionary about Di Francesco’s approach. During a two-hour seminar at Gazzetta dello Sport’s offices this year, he laid out his core tactical beliefs: arguing that 4-3-3 is an almost perfect formation – “it only has one problem: you struggle to mark your opponent’s playmaker”. He discussed preferred movements for his forwards that were hardly complicated to grasp – “To simplify: one attacker goes wide, one attacks the front post and one attacks the second.”
But everything is in the execution. Di Francesco is known to drill certain movements in training ad nauseam, obliging his players to make the same runs over and over until they become second nature. “Football is timing plus space,” he explained. “Repetition is fundamental.”
Those methods might not sound inspiring, but the results on the pitch certainly have been. Sassuolo have beaten Juventus, Napoli and Milan this season, as well as drawing with Roma and Fiorentina. Only the top three have lost fewer games in Serie A.
Better yet, such successes have been built on domestic talent. Sassuolo have only three foreign players in their first-team squad, and since earning promotion to the top flight have made only two signings from clubs outside Italy. Marius Alexe played six games during his one-year loan from Dinamo Bucharest, whilst Antonio Sanabria was only ever being “parked” at Sassuolo on his way to joining Roma.
Di Francesco insists that he has no ideological opposition to acquiring players from abroad, but hints at a belief that too many of those who arrive in Serie A are no more talented than the Italians whose places they take. When Sassuolo do add a foreign footballer, they need to be the sort who can “make the difference”.
All three of Gregoire Defrel, Sime Vrsaljko and Alfred Duncan meet that description – the team’s joint-leading goalscorer, a well-rounded full-back who starts for the Croatian national team, and a dynamic box-to-box midfielder respectively. Age is also a factor. Defrel and Vrsaljko are both 24 years old, and Duncan only 23.
They have integrated seamlessly into a team who continue to boast two of Italy’s most promising young forwards, even after Simone Zaza was sold to Juventus. Domenico Berardi has seven goals and five assists in 28 games from the right wing, and turned 21 in August. The 24-year-old Nicola Sansone has scored just as often from the opposite flank.
The foundations are laid, in other words, for continued success. Little wonder Di Francesco recently chose to extend his contract through to 2019.
He had previously been linked with Milan. When the Rossoneri fired Sinisa Mihajlovic, no less an authority than Arrigo Sacchi suggested Silvio Berlusconi hire Di Francesco as his replacement. The club named Cristian Brocchi as caretaker until the end of this season instead.
The painful truth for Milan is that Di Francesco might not have accepted the job if it were offered. Asked at the start of April where he we has headed next in his career, the manager replied: “Wherever there is no confusion. And Sassuolo, from this point of view, are among the best clubs in Italy.”
Milan, under those same terms, must be among the very worst. From the directionless transfer policy that has seen the club veer from recycling former stars on the cheap into a much-needed but poorly executed splurge last summer, through to a divided board and endless misinformation regarding potential investors, it is easy to see why Di Francesco might not view them as a desirable employers.
And that was before his team overtook Milan on Sunday. Sassuolo did not play well at home against last-placed Verona, mustering just six shots to the visitors’ 16. But another mantra of Di Francesco’s is that his team should “live off the errors of our opponents” when attacking. Lorenzo Pellegrini did exactly that, scoring the game’s only goal on a deflected shot after the ball had run kindly into his path from a tackle on the edge of the Verona area.
Milan, meanwhile, looked every bit as confused on the pitch as they have been off it, falling 2-0 behind at home against Frosinone before eventually rallying to draw 3-3. They could have won the game in the end, Mario Balotelli striking the bar deep into injury time having earlier missed a penalty. But they had been losing in the 90th minute.
They have now taken four points from as many games under Brocchi, a pathetic return when you consider that their opponents have all come from Serie A’s bottom six. The decision to fire Mihajlovic looks even more misguided today than it did at the time.
One can only imagine what Squinzi makes of it all. The Sassuolo owner is a lifelong Milan fan, to the point that he even has a red-and-black striped iPhone cover. Back when his own club were closing in on promotion to Serie A back in 2013, Squinzi was asked who he would want to win if they faced the Rossoneri. “I have no doubts,” he replied. “I will support Milan.”
He later changed his tune, declaring that he would be neutral. A good thing, too, since Sassuolo have now won four out of six head-to-head meetings in Serie A. “It feels like one of life’s big jokes,” he confessed in March. “For a Milan fan who has followed the team since 1949 to watch the team that he supports getting beaten repeatedly by the one that he owns.”
Squinzi has distanced himself, however, from suggestions that he could buy the Rossoneri himself one day. Sassuolo’s squad, he says, has nothing to envy of Milan’s. As of Sunday, the league table supports that assertion.
Talking points
• That late Milan equaliser was a hammer blow to Frosinone’s prospects of top-flight survival, but Palermo have given themselves hope by beating Sampdoria. The Sicilians moved level on points with 17th-placed Carpi, who lost at Juventus, although they remain behind on goal difference (both head-to-head matches ended in a draw). Udinese, three points further ahead, could yet be vulnerable after they were thrashed 5-1 at home by Torino.
• Not a bad goal from Andrea Belotti in that Torino win, albeit facilitated by the near total absence of an Udinese defence.
• Likewise, Oliver Kragl’s long-range free-kick against Milan was beautifully struck, but Gianluigi Donnarumma should really have done better.
• Coolest finish of the weekend belonged to Miroslav Klose, who delayed long enough when clean through on goal to sit Samir Handanovic down before chipping the Inter goalkeeper. Lazio’s results since appointing Simone Inzaghi have been mixed, with wins against Empoli, Palermo and now Inter offset by defeats against Sampdoria and (less surprisingly) Juventus, but his players, at least, seem convinced. Klose, Keita and Antonio Candreva were all heard telling reporters on Sunday night that they hoped he would stay on beyond the end of this season.
• The race for second place resumes on Monday, with both Napoli and Roma playing evening games, but Luciano Spalletti delivered some good news early when he confirmed that Kevin Strootman would start for the Giallorossi – the first time that he has done so since blowing out his knee against Fiorentina 463 days ago, all the way back in January 2015.
Results: Chievo 0-0 Fiorentina, Empoli 0-0 Bologna, Juventus 2-0 Carpi, Lazio 2-0 Inter, Milan 3-3 Frosinone, Palermo 2-0 Sampdoria, Sassuolo 1-0 Verona, Udinese 1-5 Torino.
