Ancelotti appointment marks step backward for Napoli after Sarri era

Carlo Ancelotti has been named Napoli’s new manager. Despite his winning past, the former Bayern Munich coach is all wrong for this team.

After faltering at the end of the season and conceding the Serie A title to Juventus, Napoli decided on Wednesday to go in a different direction, naming Carlo Ancelotti their new coach ahead of next season.

While Ancelotti is a big name with a pedigree of winning, Maurizio Sarri had made Napoli into one of Europe’s most entertaining sides. But playing to entertain and winning titles are two different things. They often work together. In Sarri’s case, they didn’t, and the Partenopei decided to part ways with him after three solid seasons.

Where Sarri goes from here is anyone’s guess, and part of the coaching carousel that will go on all summer. He could end up at Chelsea, should Antonio Conte vacate the premises after winning the FA Cup this past Saturday, or Zenit Saint Petersburg, the Russian club Roberto Mancini just left to be Italy’s manager.

Sarri would do great elsewhere with a deeper roster. He was able to mold a team this past season bent on winning, but it fell apart in the end. Part of the reason was Sarri’s ability to burn out his players early on in the season under the weight of so many games and tournaments.

With Ancelotti, Napoli start new. Starting over, however, isn’t always a good thing. Here are three reasons Ancelotti may be a strange fit in Naples.

Vastly different tactics

This won’t be Sarri’s Napoli anymore. At Napoli, Sarri initiated a tactical revolution. The team were runners-up this season, despite hitting a club record 91 points, thanks to their great offense. The genius of Sarri’s tactics was that no area of the field is safe, as Napoli effectively used the wings and the employment of vertical passing to distribute the ball to create scoring chances.

Under Ancelotti, things will work very differently. As a player at AC Milan under Arrigo Sacchi, he understood possession and worked with a zone system. As a manager, he branched out and became famous for his “Christmas tree” formation, a 4-3-2-1 that he deployed at AC Milan. The strength of that team was the midfield of Andrea Pirlo, Gennaro Gattuso and Clarence Seedorf, aided in attack by the exceptional Kaka and Rui Costa. At Chelsea and PSG, he used a 4-3-3. More recently at Bayern, he alternated between a 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3.

Ancelotti will not have the caliber of players at Napoli that he had at those three clubs. Instead, he’ll have to make due with what he has, a limited roster that has to compete for both the league and to reach the knockout stage of the Champions League. It won’t be nearly as fun to watch and can only really work if the club embark on a spending spree this summer and revamps the roster.

Man-management skills

While Ancelotti has managed big egos before, he has also had a penchant for alienating players in the dressing room. This past season at Bayern, it was a player revolt and a defeat to PSG in the Champions League that got Ancelotti the boot.

After rigidly sticking to a 4-3-3 formation during the 2016-17 season, often ignoring Thomas Muller for big games or playing him out of position, frustration grew in the dressing room. Players lost faith in Ancelotti’s tactics and style this past season and it started to show on the field. That’s when he was fired, a decision that ultimately improved the team’s fortunes as they won another Bundesliga crown this past season.

When Ancelotti arrived at Bayern, he had large shoes to fill — those of the great Pep Guardiola. The same thing will happen at Napoli. Sarri was adored by his players. Ancelotti will need to win their love and respect this summer if he’s going to build on the foundation Sarri built.

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Cultural challenges

This was Ancelotti’s biggest problem at Bayern. While big clubs were often built around a few big names, Bayern are a unit. The same is true at Napoli. Under Sarri, the Partenopei were so good largely because no single individual stood out above the rest.

Bringing in a few big names this summer and building around could work. It has worked for Ancelotti in the past, but at a club that are much more likely to be sellers than buyers, it’s hard to know how he’ll adapt.

More generally, Ancelotti, a manager who has spent the past decade coaching in London, Munich, Madrid, Paris and Milan, seems a strange fit for a less glamorous city like Naples. Ancelotti will have some idea of what he’s getting into, having battled Diego Maradona’s Napoli for the scudetto while playing for AC Milan in the late 1980s, but it’s been a long time since he’s been at a club that aren’t considered among the favorites for every competition they enter.

Ancelotti has a tough road ahead. While it’s true he’s won everywhere he’s gone, the move to Napoli may prove to be his toughest assignment to date.