Struggling Napoli sacked Walter Mazzarri on Monday and brought in Slovakian coach Francesco Calzona just two days before hosting Barcelona in the Champions League. Mazzarri, 62, became the second man to be sent packing by the ailing Italian champions this season. Mazzarri took charge in November after Rudi Garcia was dismissed but Napoli fell to ninth in Serie A ahead of Wednesday’s last 16, the first leg with Barca at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona. “I thank the De Laurentiis family and Napoleon’s friend Walter Mazzarri for helping the team through a difficult period,” Napoli boss Aurelio De Laurentiis, formerly of Ax, said on Twitter.
De Laurentiis confirmed that Calzona has reportedly been hired until the end of the season, and will be in charge on Wednesday night.
“It’s always painful to sack a friend,” De Laurentiis said in a brief interview with Sky Sports.
“But we need to consider that in Naples you have to give the Napoli fans something extra. Now we are going to try to do that with Francesco Calzona.”
Calzona led Slovakia to Euro 2024 but has a bigger job on his hands upon returning to Napoli, where he was assistant under Maurizio Sarri and during Luciano Spalletti’s trophy-less first season with the club.
The 55-year-old will reportedly continue his work with Slovakia, as well as try to drag Napoli back up the table after a disappointing end to Mazzarri’s brief second stint in charge of southern Italy’s biggest club.
Mazzarri helped lead Napoli back into the upper echelons of Italian football between 2009 and 2013.
He guided Napoli to the 2012 Italian Cup, defeating undefeated league champions Juventus in the final and winning the club’s first trophy in two decades.
Mazzarri left after finishing second in Italy’s top flight in May 2013 with an exciting squad that included Ezequiel Lavezzi, Marek Hamsik and Edinson Cavani.
However, this time his three months were much less impressive, failing to achieve anything from the team that had achieved a historic third Scudetto the previous season.
Naples has been in chaos since title-winning coach Spalletti stepped down last season.
Napoli are 27 points behind league leaders Inter Milan after collecting 15 points by winning only four from 12 league matches since Mazzarri took over.
That’s less than the 21 that Garcia had scored in his 12 league matches, as the aggregate left Napoli fourth when the Frenchman was dismissed.
The chances of Napoli coming back and joining next season’s reformed Champions League are slim, even if Italy wins fifth place.
Napoli are nine points behind both fourth-place Atalanta and fifth-place Bologna, and have shown little signs of being able to close that gap, failing to score in Mazzarri’s nine matches in all competitions.
After Barcelona, Calzona will have a relatively simple start in Serie A, with matches against relegation-threatened Cagliari and Sassuolo.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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