When Arrigo Sacchi
quit as coach of Parma because of stress, the club turned to the experienced
and unusual Renzo Ulivieri. Where the popular image of the football
manager is of a sheepskin clad buffoon with a swathe of gold jewellery
and a big fat capitalist cigar, Ulivieri breaks the mould. He is a
Leninist, with a bust of the great man in his living room to prove
it.
Ulivieri has made
a name for himself in Italy for managing underprivileged teams to
the top, having achieved promotion with no fewer than four different
clubs. Indeed, while many eyebrows were raised when Parma turned to
a 62 year-old, the surprise should not be that he's been appointed,
but that it's taken this long for a top club to take a punt on him.
And while Sacchi,
may have resigned because of stress, Ulivieri is keen to underline
just how fortunate those in his profession are. "True stress
is working in a leather factory or down a mine", he says. "It's
not right to talk about stress in this situation. Poor people, who
haven't got work or have a low salary, they can be stressed, not those
who earn millions a year".
The analogy may
not be apt. Sacchi, after all, only moved into football coaching in
1976 after seven years slogging away in his father's shoe factory.
And Ulivieri has never coached at the very top. Taking over at Parma
is by some way Ulivieri's biggest test, and he is well aware that
his new job is about something very different than dragging players
to a higher level on a work ethic and a shoestring budget.
"This is
a real chance for me. I've never managed such a strong squad, and
I can't say whether I'll be up to it to be honest", he said.
"I've never driven a Ferrari, so it will need some getting used
to. I hope not to make the mistake of putting my foot down and ending
up off the road".
Nevertheless,
some things never change, and Ulivieri insisted that the first thing
was to get the players working together. "As soon as I got here
I spoke to the players and asked only one thing of them: that they
should collaborate", he said.
Not that that
was not his predecessor's way. Sacchi -- whose three league games
in charge after replacing the baroque mediocrity of Alberto Malesani
yielded five points and no defeats -- had famously once spoken of
the need for his players to work together as if bound by a single
rope.
Sacchi may have come to Parma from the opposite direction to Ulivieri,
having seen the heights with AC Milan and the Italy national team,
but their footballing philosophies are not too far apart. Sacchi,
indeed, was so noted for his drillmaster approach that earned the
nickname "Hammer" in his days at Milan.
Ulivieri admits
that he saw Sacchi as something of a role model, even though he came
to football some ten years later. "I am very sorry for Sacchi.
It is very sad that his personal situation has lead to this and I
hope he will be able to find peace of mind again soon. I haven't spoken
to him yet, I didn't think it was a good time to call him. When he's
feeling better I'd like to speak to him. I've known him a long time.
When I was at Bologna I used to go and see him along with Carlo Ancelotti
and Walter Novellino. He was our teacher."
Nor is Ulivieri
planning any major changes after Sacchi's solid start. "I will
tiptoe around for now", he said. "I'm a little clumsy but
I'll try to make as little mess as possible. I will change very little
with regard to what Sacchi has done. It will be the opposition and
the fitness of the players that will dictate everything. I've seen
Parma four or five times this year and I always thought well of them.
It's a great squad and there's plenty that can still be done. But
I shall make no promises to the fans, although I have always got on
well in this part of the world. I had great years at Modena and Bologna.
It's like a dream to be back here".
Ulivieri took
Modena up to Serie B in 1990, but it was at Bologna that he
really made his name. It wasn't quite an up-from-the-gutters fairy-tale
-- more of the restoration to respectability of faded aristocracy,
but it was all about hard work and the team working as unit.
When he arrived
in Bologna, they were the sleeping giants of Italian football. They
had won seven scudetti but were languishing in Serie C. After
two years of Ulivieri, though, they were back in the top flight, and,
in their first season, they finished seventh.
Ulivieri surprised
many by quitting Bologna to move to Napoli in 1998, fired by the challenge
of restoring them, too, to former glories. There, however, the fairy-tale
didn't quite work out. He was sacked three matches from the end of
the season after a 3-2 defeat away to Lucchese, although the side
was still pushing for promotion from Serie B.
Cagliari, the
team he managed last season, were relegated to the second division
and, in a previous stint at the Sicilian club, he was involved in
a betting scandal which resulted in a three-year ban. But after that
controversy that he returned to Modesta and took the perennial strugglers
into Serie B. That was enough to convince Parma that he was
the man for the job, and Ulivieri is delighted that they did.
"I'm very
happy to have been called upon", he claimed. "I would have
come here on foot. I signed the contract without even a glance at
it. Maybe they'll re-think at the last minute, I said to myself".
His nervousness is perhaps understandable. Starting in Serie C,
it's a lot easier to move up than starting in eighth in Serie A.
As Ulivieri himself might put it, Parma have given the keys of a Ferrari
to a man used to restoring clapped out old Fiats.
