Sassuolo Season Preview 2015-16: No time to rest for Neroverdi

Date: 18th August 2015 at 1:00pm
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Over the last couple of seasons it has been near impossible to discuss Sassuolo without mentioning Simone Zaza. With him moving on to bigger things at Juventus, it could be a season of boom or bust for the Neroverdi.

Berardi - Sassuolo

Sassuolo have deservingly become the second team of many Italian football fans with their carefree attitude taking Serie A by storm throughout the last couple of seasons, and despite being by no means a major force in the Italian game, or barely a recognizable name outside the peninsula, the boys from the Mapei Stadium might well be worth tuning in for again this season.

The summer transfer window has dictated that the 2015-16 campaign could present coach Eusebio Di Francesco with his most stubborn test yet at the rather unfortunately Reggio Emilia-based side.

Their feat of achieving a 12th place finish last season will provide them an obvious target from the off, though surpassing this will not be easy.

The obvious player to watch will be 21-year-old forward Domenico Berardi, who the club will have been delighted to keep hold of amid speculation that he would depart for Juventus. The Neroverdi’s success this season will undoubtedly depend enormously on how the Italian Under-21 international performs and whether he can continue to grow as a footballer while also being the standout star of the team.

Transfers

Unfortunately for Sassuolo, the major transfer regarding the club is the departure of striker Simone Zaza as he moves on to challenge for the Scudetto at Juventus. The Neroverdi boasted one of, if not the standout most interoperable attacking tridents in Italy’s top tier last season, which Zaza was an integral part of. His exit will put extra weight on the shoulders of the aforementioned Berardi and it could well be a season of sink or swim for the 21-year-old.

The Patrick Ewing theory is a hypothesis coined by ESPN commentator Bill Simmons, which states that when a team lose their most influential player, that the team in question will inexplicably begin to perform to a higher standard. There are two factors that must be in place for the Ewing theory to be applicable, they are: (i) the team must have a star player but they never win anything, and (ii) the star player must then leave the team, resulting in a lot of people writing off that team’s chances.

While I accept that Zaza was not the only standout player in the Neroverdi team, he is absolutely one of the more integral members of their squad and, as such, the Ewing theory could be something that proves itself to be true with Sassuolo this season, and will be worth keeping in mind when monitoring the Neroverdi’s progress this year.

The arrival of Gregoire Defrel will perhaps be the most intriguing, if only for seeing how he integrates himself with the likes of Berardi, Antonio Floro Flores, Sergio Floccari and Nicola Sansone. The Frenchman was something of a rarity for Cesena last season in that he performed quite well throughout the season; despite the Cavallucci Marini falling straight back down to Serie B.

defrel sassuolo

The Coach – Eusebio Di Francesco

Di Francesco will commence his third season in charge of Sassuolo as they welcome Napoli to the Mapei on the opening weekend of Serie A, though his time at the club has not been without interruption.

In January 2014 the club decided to proceed without Di Francesco and replaced him with now 61-year-old Alberto Malesani, who failed to win a single game before being sacked just over a month later to see the man who he replaced, replace him. I might get in trouble for suggesting this, but it has been suggested this sacking took place at a very opportune time, when Sassuolo were not playing too well and had a run of difficult fixtures, and so it allowed Di Francesco to refresh his ideas and have a break from the squad without too many risks being taken.

Since his reappointment at the club, they have gone from strength-to-strength, avoiding relegation that season and pushing on to finish 12th last time around.

With the 45-year-old being a disciple of Zdenek Zeman, who famously said, “If you score 90 goals then it shouldn’t really matter how many are conceded,” it isn’t too difficult to imagine where he adopted his attacking philosophy.

The former Virtus Lanciano, Pescara and Lecce coach appears to be destined for a bigger job, and this could be his last season at the Neroverdi should he impress again.

di francesco sassuolo

Season Expectations

It won’t be an easy season by any stretch of the imagination. With Andrea Consigli in goal and Paolo Cannavaro and Francesco Acerbi offering protection to the former Atalanta man at the back, Di Francesco’s side are by no means defensively vulnerable on paper, but I always get the sense that their attacking obsession might come back to bite them once or twice over the course of the season, but I expect Sassuolo to finish the season in a similar position to that of last year, if not in a slightly improved place.

Cannavaro and Berardi show in microcosm that Sassuolo have a good balance of experience and youth and I think they will steer well clear of relegation this season at the very least.

Expected finish: 10th (NB: this is not necessarily Conor Clancy’s opinion but the average of our editors’ predictions.)

 

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