Ex-Roma coach Zdenek Zeman was sacked no sooner than his team lost to Cagliari 4-2 last Friday. They began on the wrong foot, allowing a goal in just the third minute, and after struggling to find an equalizer it soon became clear that Zeman would be on his way out immediately following the tragically dismal performance.
A team like Roma, with its wealth of talent and formidable superstar calibre in the likes of Francesco Totti, has no business losing to teams like Cagliari, Bologna, Chievo – and the list goes on – like they have this year.
Zeman was brought on board partially to produce exciting matches, but mostly to begin winning consistently – a habit that Roma has not been in since the Luciano Spalletti days. It is now February, and Roma has already lost nine times. In the 2007/2008 season, when Roma finished in second place, three points behind an excellent Inter, Roma had only lost four matches all season.
Speaking of the Spalletti days, there are still remnants of that team within the current Roma organization. On the field, it’s only Francesco Totti, Daniele De Rossi, Simone Perrotta, and Rodrigo Taddei that remain, but in the locker room a man by the name of Aurelio Andreazzoli has been a perennial figure, enduring each of the four coaching and tactical changes since Spalletti’s departure in 2009.
Andreazzoli has been named the caretaker manager for the rest of the season. His job is cut out for him: clean up Zeman’s mess and try not to lose to bottom-feeder teams anymore. But who is Andreazzoli and why is the Roman organization so sure he is the right choice?
The 59-year-old tactician is well-loved and respected at Trigoria – the Roman training ground – having been with the organization since 2005.
As a player, he never made the big league. He hung his boots after years of frustration in the lower tiers of Italian football and began coaching Ortonovese briefly before moving on to guide Fiorentina’s youth squad. Andreazzoli moved on to have an unlucky stint in Serie C1 with Massese before the encounter that would change his life.
At Coverciano, Andreazzoli met Spalletti and the two became practically inseparable from that point on. Together, they took the reins at Empoli before moving on to Udinese where they were very successful – presenting the Friulan club with its first Champion’s League spot ever.
Finally, the two tacticians arrived in Rome in July of 2005 where they would invent the 4-2-3-1 formation that would forever change the face of European football. In four years, the capital club under the guidance of Spalletti and the assistance of Andreazzoli would finish second in the Serie A twice, win two Coppa Italias and an Italian Super Cup – without omitting that they also reached the Quarter-Final round of the Champion’s League twice.
As a testament of Andreazzoli’s influence and importance to the development of the Roman players, Taddei displayed an incredible feat of technical skill against Olympiakos in the Champion’s League and then proceeded to name the move the ‘Aurelio’ after Andreazzoli when asked about it in the post-game press interviews.
After Spalletti’s departure, Andreazzoli returned to be Vincenzo Montella’s assistant in 2011. Now, he will be charged with the colossal responsibility of restoring dignity to the Roman camp after Zeman’s failure. If anyone is in a position to do this, it will be Andreazzoli.
