After pestering him to no avail for six months, reality finally mugged Maurizio Sarri on his way to Wembley Stadium. Chelsea nearly won the EFL Cup through one of Sarri’s strange detours into pragmatism.
Maurizio Sarri did what he and his novitiates swore he would never do, and he nearly won his first trophy as a result. He adapted. He adapted to his players, to English football, to his opponent, to the unique demands of a cup final and perhaps to the conditions of continued employment. He interrupted his Romantic dreams and emulated his serial trophy-winning predecessors at Chelsea FC.
Sarri used Eden Hazard as a false-nine, something that was only ever supposed to be a stop-gap until Chelsea bought him a striker he could trust and who knew his system, i.e., Gonzalo Higuain. Sarri set up Chelsea to defend in a 4-5-1 to absorb pressure and have a lighter, lower press. He brought on Callum Hudson-Odoi and Ruben Loftus-Cheek, the latter replacing Ross Barkley – a job normally reserved for Mateo Kovacic. The Blues looked to run into open space City left behind their lines, rather than attempt to create space at the risk of inviting pressure through transparent back-passes.
Before we go any further, these were all the right calls. Maurizio Sarri absolutely nailed every aspect of his preparation, organization and in-game management for this final. Any derision you might sense from us here or on Twitter stems not from his decisions, but from the context: the fact that this is everything he steadfastly and explicitly proscribed before Sunday, and that his partisans used to mock skeptics.
However, Sunday’s game was not the first time Maurizio Sarri has stepped out of character and over his own words in a bout of pragmatism.
From August to late December, Sarri talked about how much promise and potential Callum Hudson-Odoi had, before saying Hudson-Odoi was still many months – if not years – from being ready for the first team. No matter how fatigued or out of form Willian or Pedro looked, Hudson-Odoi could not get more than the deadest of dead rubber matches in the Europa League. Sarri even went so far as to imply he would have to sell either Willian or Pedro if he gave Hudson-Odoi more minutes. The only thing more puzzling than his logic is that he thinks this is a bug and not a feature.
Then the January transfer window opened amidst very credible rumours of Hudson-Odoi moving to Bayern Munich. Suddenly, Callum Hudson-Odoi was the third winger, behind Eden Hazard and either – but not both – Willian or Pedro.
The window shut with Hudson-Odoi still in Blue, and back to the bench he went. After a busy January he did not start again until February 21, in a terminally-ill rubber against Malmo. He then played the final 41 minutes of the Carabao Cup final.
It’s almost as if Maurizio Sarri played him as much as he needed to in January to ensure Hudson-Odoi stayed. Once the danger had passed – not just the danger to squad depth in this and future seasons, but the implications Hudson-Odoi leaving would have for Sarri’s image at the club – Sarri resumed normal operations. He did what he had to do, and then went back to having Gianfranco Zola trot out some easily-disproven line about opportunities for 18-year olds.
Chelsea’s game plan against Manchester City feels much the same way. Sarri has been on thin ice for some time, but this was the first game that could credibly be his last. The Steve Holland rumours and sightings contributed to the sense that this was a win-or-sack outing.
So for the first time, he chose to pursue winning over his style or his football or his desires. By doing so, he not only gave himself a better chance of winning, but showed the adaptability many people were wondering if he had at all. And in the process, he played two academy graduates, one of whom is 18-years old. This wasn’t “anti-football.” This was “anti-Sarri,” engineered by Sarri himself.
The question, then, is why now? Why wait until you are at – if not past – the point of no return? Why change tactics, integrate youth and shuffle your substitutions only when the circumstances are truly dire? Why not act when consequences can still be forestalled, if not avoided altogether?
If we thought Maurizio Sarri was some Mourinho-esque Machiavellian, we’d wonder if he did this to plant a permanent question mark on his final week(s) at Chelsea FC.
He had finally brought this team to the gates of the New Era. He had learned. He had adapted. The ideologue had been supplanted by a Premier League pragmatist. The promise was about to be delivered. But now, if he is fired, we will never know. And his very vocal legion of dead-enders in the Chelsea fan base would ensure that we never forget that we will never know. At the last minute, Sarri set aside his homebrewed hemlock and chose to make a show of his martyrdom, just so his epitaph would read “What if? We’ll never know.”
Sarri will need more performances on par with the Carabao Cup final to get to the international break in March. He will need similarly atypical game plans to get past Tottenham on Wednesday and Wolves on March 10.
If he somehow survives that far at Chelsea, then we will find out just how cynical this pragmatism is. If the danger clears and he reverts to the ways that brought him to the brink of sacking, we will know he played the club for fools and never had any intention to learn, grow or build. But at least we’ll know he can be pragmatic when he is personally on the line.