Remember To Dream, Vol. 6
“The child in each of us must be nurtured. That often makes us the best.” - Maurizio Sarri
A Profile In Dreaming
Every week, I profile someone that has fulfilled their dream against the odds and highlight three lessons from their journey.
Mister 33
Maurizio Sarri was fired from his position as the manager of Juventus F.C. - the most successful football club in Italy and one of the biggest in the world - despite lifting the Serie A league trophy only days earlier. For most people, this would have been a dark moment, but for Sarri, this marked the culmination of a long, winding journey from the depths of Italian football to the very top.
Sarri’s football managerial career epitomizes what it means to start from the bottom. He is arguably the most unlikely league-winning manager in the history of Italian football. He never played the game professionally. He was a full-time banker until the age of 40. He was managing in the sixth division less than 20 years ago. And yet, he led Chelsea - one of the biggest clubs in England - to a Europa League triumph in 2019 and Juventus to a Serie A league title the following year.
Today, he is regarded as one of the best managers in the world and someone that has revolutionized how the game is played. Pep Guardiola, arguably the top manager in football, had this to say about him: “I have no doubts that Sarri is one of the best managers out there. His style of football is as good as a drink in the sun.”
So how did a chain-smoking, former foreign exchange trader become a multiple title-winning manager after such a late start to his career in an industry that prioritizes professional football playing experience? The answer: passion, innovation, self-belief, and attention to detail.
Sarri has relished his rise to the top of football. His career is a testament to the idea that the journey matters more than the destination. “For me, it has been gratifying to have had a long career starting from the bottom. It’s been educational, particularly because certain levels teach you more and make you grow more. I think it’s a path which, generalizing, everybody should do, but then there are big exceptions.”
Here are some things you may not have known about him:
He smokes up to 60 cigarettes a day and chews on a filter during matches
He is extremely superstitious, once forcing his players to paint their boots black
He has managed 20 different teams since 1990, from a group of amateurs to some of the best players in the world, including Cristiano Ronaldo
He received the Enzo Bearzot Award as Coach of the Year in Italy in 2017
At 61, he is the oldest manager to ever win the Serie A league title in Italy
And three lessons from his life:
Follow Your Heart.
Sarri loved football from a young age. Although he worked at Banca Monte Dei Paschi Di Siena in Tuscany full-time until the age of 40, Sarri had been playing and coaching in amateur football teams part-time throughout his twenties and thirties. He worked at the bank in the morning, then focused on football in the afternoons and evenings.
Sarri continued this routine until 2002, when he decided to quit banking and become a full-time football manager. “I finally decided I needed to focus exclusively on coaching if I wanted to achieve results,” he explained. “I am determined to make a living from my passion for football.”
He spent the next 10 years clawing his way up from the sixth division of Italian football to the second division. He was building a reputation as a clever manager whose teams played beautiful football. As one of his former players notes, “His football was to die for.” He made his big breakthrough in 2012, when he became manager of Empoli, a second division team.
Over the next 3 years, he took Empoli up to the Serie A, the premier division of Italian football, and kept them there. His work caught the eye of the owner of Napoli, one of the leading clubs in Italy and the club representing Sarri’s birthplace. He was hired as manager in 2015 and his career exploded from there.
Shortly before he left Empoli, he was asked if he was angry about his position as the lowest paid coach in Serie A. He replied: “Angry? Let’s not joke. They pay me for something I would have done for free after work. I’m lucky.”
It takes courage to leave a high-paying job and start from the bottom in another industry, but that is exactly what Maurizio Sarri did. He followed his heart by becoming a full-time football manager. His passion drove him to the top of the game over the next 20 years.
Believe In Yourself.
When Sarri was appointed as the manager of Napoli, nobody expected anything from him. In fact, many fans of the club considered him to be a bad hire. Diego Maradona said, “We won’t have a winning Napoli with him. I’d have kept Benítez. Sarri is a good person, but he’s not worthy of Napoli.”
Sarri suffered a poor start to his Napoli career, gaining two points out of a possible nine from his first three games in charge. But he didn’t panic. He kept faith with his strategy and conducted highly detailed, structured sessions with his players. He knew his ideas would take time to translate onto the pitch.
Sure enough, Napoli’s results improved and the team quickly established an exciting, attacking brand of football. They topped the Serie A table in December 2015 as “Winter Champions” for the first time in 26 years and ultimately registered a 30 percent increase in points gained compared to the previous year.
Perhaps the biggest compliment to Sarri is that even Maradona apologized for his previous critique. “I said what I thought of him, then he changed and I recognized my mistake. I really like how his Napoli plays.”
Sarri became one of the most coveted managers in the game and was hired by Chelsea F.C. in 2018. He led the team to a top-four finish and went on to win the Europa League that season. A photo of Sarri admiring his winner’s medal went viral. It was his first major triumph as a manager, one that had been in the works for almost 20 years.
Maurizio Sarri created his own brand of football and stuck to it through thick and thin. He believed in himself when others doubted him. His commitment to his principles ultimately led to his success on the pitch and his reputation for innovation off it.
Dare To Be Different.
Sarri developed a unique approach to the game that has come to be known as Sarrismo or Sarriball. It is characterized by a fast-paced, possession-based style of attacking football where the objective is to move the ball forward as quickly as possible. Sarri’s teams are known for pressing their opponents and forcing them to make mistakes, and building attacks from the back.
It is a novel brand of football that he has refined over the course of his career and is revered by football purists. As Fabio Capello, a multiple-title winning manager, said, “Every 20 years there is an innovation in football. After Ajax there was Sacchi’s Milan, then Guardiola, who rather sent football to sleep. Fortunately now we’ve got Sarri, who can wake football up again.”
Sarri also built his success on meticulous attention to detail. His nickname, ‘Mister 33’, was coined by his players at Sansovino, because he prepared thirty-three different set-piece routines for attacking situations, when most teams used less than ten.
He is famous for organizing training sessions that simulate in-game passing sequences. Instructing his players to repeat the same passages of play over and over until they become instinctive. As one former player explains, “Sarri is a perfectionist but in a good way. If you miss a pass by ten centimeters, he looks for ways to improve you. His idea is that the team should memorize what they should do.”
Upon achieving promotion to Serie A with Empoli, Sarri incorporated technology into his training. He began using a drone to fly over sessions and record his players’ movements for later analysis. He treated his tactics as if each sequence was an act of choreographed dance. Every player learned where to be and where to pass the ball on instinct. In practice, particularly during his time at Napoli, the results were magical.
This combination of innovation and attention to detail has enabled Sarri to build teams that are successful and play an attractive style of football. His creativity has fueled his rise to the top of the game.
Sarri adopted a unique approach to football and meticulous attention to detail, and was rewarded for it in the long run. Whatever you do in life, don’t be afraid to do things differently. Timely, well-executed innovation is a surefire recipe for success in any field.
Ponder This
“I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.” - Jim Carrey
Taken from his commencement address to Maharishi University Of Management’s Class of 2014.
Practice This
Your brain can’t tell the difference between real or imagined experiences. This is significant, because it means that if you can visualize or rehearse experiences in your mind, it can benefit you in reality.
Visualization is not the same as daydreaming. It has to be done properly to be effective. This means recreating experiences in your mind that are as detailed as possible. They have to look, sound, smell, taste, and feel like the real thing.
Over the next few weeks, I will share different exercises to help you practice your visualization muscle. Here is the first one to get you started:
Choose a photo that reminds you of a moment in the past. Study it for a few minutes. Memorize every detail. Take your mind back to that moment and recall as many aspects of it as you can. Try to play it back in your mind like the scene from a movie. Keep doing this until you’re effortlessly able to recreate the photo and the moment.
Play This
Every week, I share some of the music I listen to when I write. Studies have shown that playing a song or short playlist on repeat helps put you into a state of flow, which is optimal for creativity. The choice of music is up to you. I choose music that reflects the energy I want to infuse in my work. Most of the time, this means dreamy, melodic deep house. But sometimes, when I’m writing about something raw, I go with old school hip hop.
Here’s a link to a master playlist of all the songs I’ve shared so far.
Read This
Silver Linings Pandemic Every event in our lives has a silver lining. This pandemic is opening doors for us to reassess the way we are living and rediscover what is truly important. We can view it as an opportunity to grow, if we so choose. (Originally published on April 12, 2020).
I’d love to hear your feedback or connect with you. Please email me at omar@omarfarha.com.