Maurizio Sarri Hints at Napoli Exit After Losing Out to Juventus in Close Race for the Scudetto
SSC Napoli manager Maurizio Sarri refused to commit his future to the club after his side's 2-0 victory over Sampdoria at the Stadio Luigi Ferraris on Sunday night. The win was no more than a consolation for I Ciucciarelli, as Juventus confirmed their seventh successive Scudetto by drawing away to Roma.
Speaking after the game to Mediaset Premium, and quoted by Football Italia, Sarri was evasive on the subject of his own future, saying: "I can say that I love the fans deeply, I love the city deeply and that will never change, regardless of how this story ends."
His comments about Napoli chairman Aurelio De Laurentiis reflected the increasingly fractious relationship between the two men, as Sarri said pointedly: "There’s a club dinner on Thursday, so we’ll definitely meet there, unless one of us doesn’t turn up!"
The Napoli manager also refused to acknowledge that Juventus deserved to win this season's Serie A title, explaining: "It goes without saying Juve are more powerful in every way. I haven’t watched them enough to say if they were the best."
Sarri even claimed that the Serie A schedule had given Juve an unfair advantage over Napoli: "We played after Juve 14 times in the last 16 rounds and seeing as Juve pretty much always win, that badly damaged us."
In particular, the Napoli boss seemed to imply that this played a part in his side's 3-0 defeat at Fiorentina, which all but ended Napoli's Scudetto bid, as they had watched Juve's 3-2 comeback win over Inter the night before:
"We needed to go to bed early on Saturday night in Florence," he explained, adding:
"The team suffered a psychological blow and felt it for the timing and the way that result came about. The only regret I have this season is that we lost the Scudetto in the hotel and not on the pitch."
Napoli's win over Sampdoria in Genoa enabled them to set a new club record of 88 points in a Serie A season. However, it's safe to assume that they would gladly have traded that record for a first Scudetto since 1990.
