Clubs will be more wary about appointing inexperienced big names as managers after Juventus’s Ciro Ferrara became the latest rookie manager to be sacked on Friday.
Barcelona’s Pep Guardiola is a rarity in being a huge success in his first big club job, leading the Catalans to six trophies last year including the Champions League.
His achievement was one of the reasons Juve decided to name former defender Ferrara as coach following Claudio Ranieri’s surprise dismissal in May.
The 42-year-old, who had only worked as a Juve youth coach and assistant to Italy boss Marcello Lippi, made a good start but when results started to go wrong his side failed to react to any of his tactical or motivational moves.
“Ferrara doesn’t know how to manage a group. Juve needs rebuilding,” well-known Italian pundit Mario Sconcerti wrote in Corriere della Sera, acknowledging that under-performing new recruits like Diego and a raft of injuries have not helped.
Juve were dumped out of the Champions League at the group stage following an embarrassing 4-1 home defeat by Bayern Munich and then went on a run of five defeats in six Serie A games.
Thursday’s Italian Cup quarterfinal defeat at Inter Milan was the last straw for Juve’s directors, who had tried to give Ferrara extra time to turn the situation around and vindicate their decision to go with inexperience.
AC Milan were another Italian club who plumped for a rookie coach for this season.
Brazilian Leonardo, a fluent speaker of five languages, had been working part-time as a director at Milan but was chosen to replace Carlo Ancelotti when the Italian headed for Chelsea.
The choice of Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi was partly financial, Leonardo was already on the payroll and the Italian prime minister did not want to go chasing an expensive experienced manager given he has reined in his soccer spending.