Roberto Donadoni: What’s his deal?

By: Francesco | October 7th, 2009

donadoni

As everyone knows by now, Roberto Donadoni was relieved of his duties as Napoli manager and was replaced by former Sampdoria boss Walter Mazzarri. We can’t deny that Donadoni was one of the greatest wingers Italian football has ever produced. But his managerial career so far? Not great. We really don’t know where Donadoni is at as a manager or if he will ever improve. It’s rather confusing. Is Donadoni a good manager who just hasn’t found the right place to explode? Or is he a raccomandato, someone that just got ahead because of his name? The answer is really up in the air.

Lecco, Livorno, Genoa, Livorno, Italy, Napoli. No, I didn’t just name any random Italian cities, that’s what Roberto Donadoni’s coaching resume reads at the moment. The only disastrous experience he had was at Genoa, where he was sacked after 3 losses in the first 3 games in 2003. At Lecco he was just starting out, in his first Livorno experience he led the team to a respectable 10th place in Serie B and in his second experience in 2005-2006 had the squad at 6th place in February, but then resigned after constant criticism from owner Aldo Spinelli and his yellow raincoat. Then the World Cup came and went, Italy were champions, Lippi had resigned, and the post-Calciopoli FIGC were looking for a replacement.

Granted, it was pretty much slim-pickings when you narrowed down the candidates up for selection. The coaches available and up for consideration were Alberto Zaccheroni, Claudio Ranieri, Nevio Scala, Gianluca Vialli, along with U-21 boss Claudio Gentile and Roberto Donadoni. None of the options seemed particularly appetizing, but Donadoni had former teammate and good friend Demetrio Albertini handling the duty of selecting a manager and therefore by late July the new manager of the nazionale was Roberto Donadoni.

And so, those 2 years of Donadoni’s Italy came and went with the highs and lows that we all experienced. Donadoni was pretty close to still being on the Italy bench after Euro 2008, but not reaching the semi-final put an end to his tenure.

Then in March, with Edy Reja gone at Napoli, Donadoni was brought back into the club football world by Aurelio De Laurentiis. Donadoni didn’t change much, as Napoli still pretty much struggled from March to May. However people blamed it on the whole mid-season shake-up and how players were demoralized and just waiting for the season to be over and Donadoni would do better after having a summer to prepare the squad and mold them into his ideas.

Well the summer came and went, Napoli bought new players, and De Laurentiis was expecting a super Napoli for the coming season. And here we are 7 games in, and Donadoni has been sacked and replaced. Now, we can say that De Laurentiis may have been a little bit hasty in parting ways with the former Milan star, but we can also say that Napoli did not play very well in these 7 games. Bringing in Walter Mazzarri, who is a 3-5-2 specialist, is a pretty good idea.

But now we are left with Roberto Donadoni (who said today De Laurentiis knows about as much about calcio as he knows about the film industry, which is nothing), who is without a job. What will his future be. Most certainly big teams won’t hire him, and his only job offers are probably going to be from mid-level clubs and below. Donadoni basically still has to prove himself as a manager, and he’s going to have to start from scratch at a small club and do very well and impress people. If not, he will probably wind up either with a very mediocre coaching career, or quitting coaching altogether, becoming an analyst on a tv station or program (but his personality doesn’t seem to fit that).

What do you think? Is Donadoni a good manager waiting to explode or is he simply a raccomandato? Leave your thoughts in the comments.