Appointed to everyone’s surprise last June to the coveted position of coach of the reigning Italian champion, Rudi Garcia did not have time to savor the Neapolitan passion for football for long. SSC Napoli announced on Tuesday, November 14, that they had dismissed the French technician from his position and replaced him with the Italian Walter Mazzarri.
The 59-year-old coach had not had such a short stint on the bench of a professional club since his eventful debut at Saint-Etienne in 2001, where he coached the Greens for seventeen matches. In Campania, Garcia never managed to extend the momentum of last season, which had won the Serie A by winning Naples, headed by Luciano Spalletti, who left after disagreements with the whimsical Neapolitan president, Aurelio De Laurentiis.
Beaten on Sunday November 12 at home by Empoli (0-1), a modestly poorly ranked side, the Neapolitans have already lost three times in twelve days of the championship. Although fourth in Serie A, they are already ten points behind the leader, Inter Milan. And second place has also moved away: Juventus Turin is eight points ahead. In the Champions League, Naples benefits from a fairly weak Group C, but lost at home against Real Madrid and was held on the last day by Union Berlin (1-1), a team which lost twelve of their fifteen matches played this season.
Napoli’s new poor performance against Empoli accelerated a divorce that almost happened during the last international break in October. According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, president Aurelio De Laurentiis, a film producer, was ulcerated and made it known by going down to the locker room at half-time while the score was still 0-0. In the process, the president organized a crisis meeting in Rome with the main managers of the club he took over in 2004, at the time in Serie C.
Since the end of his Marseille experience in 2019, Rudi Garcia has had two contrasting seasons at Olympique Lyonnais – a 7th and a 4th place in Ligue 1, a semi-final in the Champions League – where his relations deteriorated with the director sportsman of the time, Juninho, did not leave good memories. After a one-season stay in Saudi Arabia at Al-Nassr, he managed to defy the odds to return to Italy, where he played between 2013 and 2016 at AS Rome.
His coaching record still includes two trophies, both obtained in Lille during the 2010-2011 season: a French championship title and a Coupe de France. He was elected French coach of the year three times by France Football magazine in 2011, 2013 and 2014.