Incredible rise of Slovakia manager who worked as coffee salesman and resigned from job to recommend ex-Chelsea boss
FRANCESCO CALZONA’S rise to leading out a team at the Euros has been remarkable.
The Italian manager, born in Southern Italy in Calabria, initially played and coached at amateur level while working full-time as a coffee dealer.
It was during his time on the Italian amateur football scene that his path first crossed with a man who also coached as an escape from his day-job as a banker.
The two hit it off, with Calzona particularly impressed with the manager’s fresh-take on how football should be played in an Italian football culture still known then for its obsession with defence.
That came when Calzona was playing for Tuscan side Tegoleto in the 1999-2000 season, and he was offered a role as player-manager.
But rather than accept, he instead recommended his banking friend and fellow coach, Maurizio Sarri.
Calzona said: “I met him [Sarri] through a mutual friend. He was a financial promoter, I had a couple of pennies saved and I gave it to him to manage, but we always ended up talking about football.
“I was at Tegoleto, they had fired the coach, and they asked me to be player-manager. But I just wanted to play and I suggested Sarri for the bench. We had an excellent season and everything started from there.”
The two would go on to form a double-act, with Calzona following Sarri from Serie C to A as his assistant manager at the likes of Peruigia, Alessandria, Sorrento and Empoli before the two hit the big time when Sarri took over at Napoli in 2015.
It was here that Sarri developed a reputation of one of the most forward thinking Italian managers of his generation for his style of football known as “Sarrismo” – an intricate 4-3-3 system that broke with Italian defensive tradition.
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The duo would take Napoli agonisingly close to their first Scudetto since 1990 in 2018, but ultimately lost out by four points to Juventus.
Calzona didn’t follow Sarri to West London when he became Chelsea manager, instead preferring to stay in Italy.
In 2020, he became Eusebio Di Francesco’s assistant manager at Cagliari, much to the reported annoyance of Sarri and then returned to Napoli as Luciano Spalletti’s assistant in 2021.
It was only after this stint as Spalletti’s assistant that Calzona took his first ever role as a head coach with the Slovakia national team.
He got the job on the recommendation of Napoli and Slovakia legend Marek Hamsik who had been impressed with Calzona’s work in Naples.
His work with Slovakia saw him apply Sarri’s principles, and transforming the side from a stodgy defensive team into an exciting attacking one.
They qualified for Euro 2024 with a record of seven wins, a draw and two losses, with both of those coming to Portugal.
And it was while he was boss at Slovakia that a call from Napoli came for him to re-join as caretaker head coach.
The Southern Italian side made an awful defence of their 2022-23 title after the disastrous appointments of Rudi Garcia and Walter Mazzari – leading to Calzona taking over between February and June this year.
Rather than relax his role with Slovakia, Calzona opted to balance the two jobs, saying he would work on his Napoli job during the day and Slovakia at night.
That didn’t really work out for the Italian though, as he guided Napoli from ninth when he took over to tenth in the league – he has now been replaced by Antonio Conte.
Speaking on his time at Napoli ahead of the Euros he said: “I thought we could do better but unfortunately it didn’t happen. We had the qualities to do better, but this year has been a disappointment and a curse.”
His assistant Hamsik said: “Calzona is under massive pressure. He said he could not wait to come to the Slovakia training camp.”
