Pallotta: We want Rudi Garcia to be Roma’s Sir Alex Ferguson

Date: 29th November 2013 at 12:50am
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Roma president James Pallotta has revealed that he’s more than satisfied with the club’s current style of play.

The Giallorossi are currently in second place on the Serie A table, after recently falling just one point behind Juventus, and are yet to be defeated in the league this season after 10 wins and three draws thus far.

Pallotta spoke to Football Italia about his mission to rebuild the club and what he’s been doing to help them succeed, including the hiring of coach Rudi Garcia, who’s been an excellent leader for the club since his arrival over the summer.

“I just love the way we’re playing,” said the 55-year-old American businessman. “I could see it in July at the MLS All-Star game the kind of team we were going to have.

“I said all through August we had a great team this year and nobody believed me, least of all the media in Rome. I don’t blame them sometimes, though.

“They’ve got to give me time, as I’ve only been president for 14-15 months and I only started making changes in January. I love the way the team plays now. Forget the wins, I mean the style we’re playing.

“The devastating loss to Lazio in last season’s Coppa Italia final has cemented my view on what we were going to do going forward.

“I was very, very upset for a day, but from then on thought let’s start making the changes we needed to make.

“It really started by bringing in Italo Zanzi as the CEO at the beginning of January. It was my decision to let Zdenek Zeman go in February. I wasn’t happy with the style for five months previously. The coach has a great history, but it’s not my style or how I wanted the operation to be run.

“The assistant coach Aurelio Andreazzoli that we had was going to be an interim coach anyway, unless he completely surprised us and won every game, in which case I’m not sure what would’ve happened!

“He did a great job for us in the interim and is still with us, proving very, very useful on the technical side.

“Rudi Garcia was obviously my decision. I asked sporting director Walter Sabatini what other coaches were around, not just the coaches who have gone through the system in Italy and are the same old, even though there are respectable coaches, but we wanted to do something different and have someone that we thought could be at Roma for 10 years, looking at the Alex Ferguson type model at Manchester United.”

 

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