Chelsea players and fans deserve Maurizio Sarri’s heart after UEL win

Maurizio Sarri dedicated his Europa League title with Chelsea to the fans at Napoli, for whom he never won a trophy. Decent gesture, but wrong place, wrong time and wrong attribution.

Maurizio Sarri has some oral fixations. His in-game mastication of cigarette ends is well-documented and satisfies his nicotine cravings in the tobacco-free confines of 21st-century athletic venues. His habit of putting one or both feet in his mouth pre- and post-game seems much less functional.

Sarri dedicated his Europa League trophy “firstly to the Napoli fans, because this is the satisfaction I was unable to give them last year.” He then went on to dedicate it to Chelsea’s injured players who almost certainly would have played some part in the game, such as Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Antonio Rudiger.

Sarri and Napoli – the city and the team – have a deep love and respect for each other. His relationship with Napoli’s fans from his three years there is the sort of bond most managers and players will never experience with their base of support. No one should begrudge him his affection for his old employer and audience, nor the emotions he must feel having accomplished in one season at Chelsea what he could not do in three seasons at Napoli.

However, as my father often said on a different topic, there’s a time and place for everything. These were not them.

Maurizio Sarri has not had a positive relationship with Chelsea’s fans or many of his players in his first season. He has his slavish salivating hordes on Twitter, but many – perhaps most – Chelsea fans are ambivalent at best about the man and his football. He repeatedly said this season he does not care what the fans think. He made few efforts to connect with fans and the culture of the club, even as that club culture carried him to his first trophy. Yet his attribution for that trophy went first to his former fans.

Among the players, Sarri spent the season demeaning or shunting those he needed most. Eden Hazard, Olivier Giroud, N’Golo Kante and Ruben Loftus-Cheek catalyzed the Blues’ run through the tournament and – with the exception of Loftus-Cheek – powered the win in Baku. But from Hazard’s selfishness to Giroud’s place behind Gonzalo Higuain in the Premier League XI to Kante’s lack of “technical” abilities to Loftus-Cheek’s delayed accession to the regular squad, Sarri showed little concern or gratitude for them throughout the season. And now that has continued until the final day.

We hosted a debate earlier in the season about whether Chelsea should only hire managers who have won at least one trophy with a previous club. The consensus was a caveated no, trophies should not be a prerequisite for the job.

I attached more caveats than my colleagues (shocker, I know). I argued there must be something exceptional about the candidate (e.g., Frank Lampard) and the strategic plan (are you willing to endure some dry years?) if the club are going to hire someone with an empty managerial trophy shelf. My arguments were based on the particular difficulties attendant to winning your first trophy opposed to any subsequent ones. To some extent, the strength of Chelsea’s culture and DNA has given me pause to reconsider. The players and the club are so proficient at winning they can train the manager to be one of them (if he’s willing to learn, but that’s for other articles past and future).

However, Sarri’s post-game press conference showed another reason for my concerns. A first-time winning manager can trip up after the trophy presentation just as easily as he can en route.

The previous Chelsea manager who won his first trophy also did it in a European competition. But Roberto di Matteo did not dedicate it to the fans at West Bromwich Albion, with whom he returned the club to the Premier League but did not win any trophies.

Antonio Conte won three scudettos at Juventus, but failed to deliver them a Coppa Italia. He won his first domestic cup as manager with Chelsea, in the 2017/18 FA Cup. He did not dedicate it to the bianconeri.

Chelsea’s other trophy-winning managers won plenty at their earlier clubs, so they had no need to offer the Blues’ victories on the altar of unfinished business.

Chelsea have won trophies in 15 of the last 19 seasons. Maurizio Sarri is now part of that tradition.

His deep feelings for Napoli are not incompatible with immersing himself in his current club and building similar ties with the players and the fans. He should do that if he wants more trophies to dedicate to his former home, and that means knowing where and when to make the appropriate gestures to both.