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SERIE A

Napoli Could Be the Real Winners When the Serie A Managerial Merry-Go-Round Stops Spinning

By Dan Cancian

Published on: June 10, 2025

It’s all change in the hotseats ahead of the new season but even for Serie A, where managerial stability remains a loose concept, this is an unprecedented level of turnover.

Six of the top eight teams from last term will have new men in charge by the time the campaign kicks off in August, with only Napoli and Juventus going with the same again.

Antonio Conte’s future seemed to lie away from Naples after he led them to their second Scudetto in three years.

“I’m very tired; I’m just about making it to the end,” he said before the final game of the season. “Naples is a beautiful place, full of passion and enthusiasm. There’s a high demand, sometimes more than what’s feasible.”

But just as it seemed Conte and Napoli would part ways, Aurelio De Laurentiis confirmed the club would go “full steam ahead” with the 55-year-old, who is the first manager to win the Scudetto with three different clubs.

No team has defended the Serie A title since Juventus won their ninth in a row in 2020, but the early signs are that Napoli have a very good shout.

Antonio Conte has now won Serie A with three different teams (Photo by Francesco Pecoraro/Getty Images)

With Inter Milan in disarray after their Treble heartbreak, the Partenopei should start next season as favourites.

Conte’s decision to remain in Naples has major ramifications for Juventus too, who had briefly flirted with the idea of a reunion with their former manager.

And how the Bianconeri could do with someone like Conte, who restored them as a domestic superpower after six years in the wilderness following the Calciopoli scandal.

Juventus are navigating unfamiliar waters after the disastrous Thiago Motta experiment was shelved after just nine months, with Igor Tudor brought in as emergency replacement.

The Croat did just enough to steer the Old Lady to Champions League qualification and may well retain the job, purely by virtue of the fact the role does not seem particularly appealing to anyone else.

Gian Piero Gasperini also held talks with Juventus but was reportedly less than impressed with the club’s muddled thinking. It is the sort of rejection Italy’s most successful club has seldom – if ever – had to contend with. 

Then again, Juventus have seldom lacked a clear strategy, as they do now. 

Sporting director Cristiano Giuntoli, the man responsible for hiring Motta and handing him £170m worth of signings, has followed the former Bologna manager out of the door along with managing director Francesco Calvo.

Damien Comolli, formerly of Liverpool, Tottenham and Fenerbahce, has been drafted in as general manager, with club legend Giorgio Chiellini installed as director of football strategy.

Chiellini understands Juventus better than any executive the Bianconeri have hired in the past decade, as does Tudor. And that may just be enough for him to land the job on a permanent basis.

The same dynamic applies eastward on the A4 motorway, where Inter have opted for Cristian Chivu to replace Simone Inzaghi.

A Treble winner under Jose Mourinho in 2010, the Romanian spent six seasons at the San Siro as a player before managing their youth teams from Under-14 all the way up through the age groups.

He left Inter in February to replace Fabio Pecchia at Parma and won 16 points in 13 games to keep them in Serie A.

The appointment is a gamble both for Inter and Chivu. The feeling this season was that the Nerazzurri were reaching the end of their cycle. Inzaghi’s departure for Saudi Arabia following the shellacking by PSG in Munich in the Champions League final will only accelerate the process.

Inter won six major trophies under the 49-year-old, clinching their 20th Scudetto in dominant fashion in 2023-24. But they have also lost two Champions League finals in three years and have twice come up short when the Serie A title race has gone down to the final day, most recently last month when Napoli pipped them by a point.

Up until April, Inter looked on course to repeat Mourinho’s historic Triplete, only to hand up empty handed. A day of reckoning for the Nerazzurri’s grizzly band of veterans beckons.  

Inter had the oldest squad in Serie A and in the Champions League and urgently need a significant overhaul. That is a delicate situation for Chivu to walk into, particularly considering promotion from within comes with a warning for the Nerazzurri

For every Giovanni Invernizzi, who won the Scudetto in 1971 after being promoted from Primavera manager to replace Heriberto Herrera, there’s Andrea Stramaccioni, who followed the same path 42 years later but finished ninth in his only season in charge. Chivu, incidentally, was part of that squad.

If Inter are picking one of their own, across the divide AC Milan are turning to the past to ensure the future will not be as dismal as the present.

Along with beating the Nerazzurri in the Italian SuperCup final in January, ending their rivals’ Treble bid in the Coppa Italia semi-final was the high watermark of Milan’s season.

Six months after replacing Paulo Fonseca, Sergio Conceicao followed his compatriot through the exit door at Milanello, with Max Allegri returning to the San Siro over a decade after leaving for Juventus.

It is now 14 years since the Tuscan won the Scudetto with the Rossoneri, but the current iteration of Milan is a distant relative of the one that finished six points ahead of Inter.

In fact, this version of Milan, the Milan of RedBird and Gerry Cardinale, bears no resemblance to the club that dominated at home and abroad for decades.

Losing finalists in the Coppa Italia, Il Diavolo missed out on European football after finishing eighth. 

Lest Allegri was under any illusion about the size of the task ahead, they have already lost Tijjani Reijnders to Manchester City, while captain Mike Maignan looks set to join Chelsea.

Nothing symbolises Milan’s lack of ambition under RedBird more than replacing Reijnders, arguably their best player last season, with a 39-year-old Luka Modric on a free transfer.

Like Allegri, Maurizio Sarri has also returned to his former club, the 66-year-old reuniting with Lazio to replace Marco Baroni, much to the delight of Rome’s tobacconists.

Sarri led the Biancocelesti to fifth place in Serie A in his first term in charge with 64 points, before finishing second behind Napoli with 74 points the following season.

It was their best finish since they won the Scudetto under Sven-Goran Eriksson in 2000. 

But Il Comandante was gone halfway through his third campaign, a decision Lazio president Claudio Lotito attributed to Sarri being betrayed by people within the club.

Sarri had long been critical of Lazio’s transfer policy, a delicate topic given their absence from European competition will have a significant impact on their summer business.

Under Baroni, Lazio spent a large chunk of the season in the top four and lost to Bodo Glimt in the Europa League quarter-finals after topping the table in the league phase.

They went into the final day of the season with an outside chance of securing a Champions League spot, only to miss out on European football completely after losing at home to Lecce.

Lotito suggested Sarri has unfinished business at the Stadio Olimpico, but will he be given the time and tools to complete his work this time?

The same question applies to Gasperini, who joins Sarri in the Eternal City after replacing Claudio Ranieri in charge of Roma.

The Giallorossi narrowly missed out on Champions League qualification, but the fact they will be playing in Europe next season at all is a minor miracle considering they barely hovered above the relegation zone when Ivan Juric was sacked in November.

Gasperini’s reign at Atalanta may well be the most transformational managerial spell in Italian football since Arrigo Sacchi turned Milan into a domestic and European juggernaut.

Prior to his arrival, Atalanta had not finished in the top half in eight years, but never finished lower than eighth during his tenure.

Last season’s fourth place marks the third time La Dea have finished in the top four under Gasperini, who also lifted the Europa League in 2024.

Inevitably, because of the 67-year-old’s remarkable success in Bergamo, the pressure will be much higher in Rome.

Gasperini always sought to temper expectations while in charge of Atalanta, but will not have the same luxury if the Giallorossi hit the ground running.

Next year it will be a quarter of a century since the Scudetto took the road of the Italian capital, with Roma succeeding Lazio on the throne.

If excitement is sweeping through Rome, a mild sense of trepidation is palpable in Bergamo. After nine years of Gasperini, Juric seems a curious choice of replacement.

Gian Piero Gasperini has left Atalanta after nine years to take charge of Roma (Photo by Marco Luzzani/Getty Images)

The Croat’s three seasons in charge of Torino were competent enough with the Granata never finishing lower than 10th, but his spell with Roma was nothing short of disastrous. In two months in charge, Juric won just four of his 12 games and left them four points above the relegation zone.

Worse was to come in the Premier League, where he lost 13 of his 16 games in charge of Southampton in all competitions, before being sacked in April.

Juric played under Gasperini and started his managerial career as his assistant, but has his work cut out to live up to his mentor’s legacy.

Fiorentina, meanwhile, remain in the market for a new manager after Raffaele Palladino surprisingly left after just one season.

La Viola reached the Europa Conference League semi-final and finished sixth in Serie A, making them an attractive vacancy.

Keep watching this managerial merry-go-round – just try not to get too dizzy.

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