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De Biasi: “In Italy everything is provisional, Azerbaijan is my new challenge”

Gianni De Biasi is in Turin to challenge Cristiano Ronaldo. Since July he has been the Azerbaijan coach, 108th in the Fifa ranking and included in Group A of the world qualifiers together with Portugal, Serbia, Ireland and Luxembourg. He has no hope of going to Qatar, but he has other wonderful ideas in mind and in the meantime he starts from the city where he worked for two years with the grenades: the restrictions due to Covid led this match to Turin at the push of Cristiano Ronaldo, who convinced Juve to host Portugal in its structures.
Gianni De Biasi, Azerbaijan after Albania: but how do you get them?
“I have been away from Italy for more than ten years now. Either they give me the opportunity to do my job or I invent another part, I told myself then. And it went as it went”.
Can’t you be a coach in Italy?
“With rare exceptions, no. This figure should have the weight it should have in the choice of players and in programming, they should not be judged after four and a half games. This is a complex job, you cannot live it as a bet at the casino, you can’t change things overnight. You have to transfer your way of seeing the world, football, life to the team: how can you do it if everything is always temporary? “.
Has Italy never proposed a project to you?
“I tried to start one at Toro. After the miraculous promotion in 2006 I said to Cairo: President, take some young people, let’s look far, people will forgive you everything. Instead he wanted the names. But Turin remains one of my favorite places, it is It was exciting to play this match at the Delle Alpi, where we won Serie A in front of 70,000 fans, even if now it has another name and another aspect “.
Are you happy that Nicola is on the bench that was yours now?
“Yes, among the players I have had he is one of those I have remained most fond of. I came on purpose from Sardinia for the funeral of his son, a terrible thing. Even now, sometimes the pain he feels can be read in his eyes. a great man and a great coach, he is one who lives the profession intensely, knows how to enter people, manages to immerse himself fully in the environment that surrounds him. Just look at what he did in Crotone, what harmony he found. Toro gave a shock: he is someone who knows how to be followed, who lights up, even if saving himself will be hard “.
You are no longer involved in these matters.
“In 99 cases out of 100 the coach is the scapegoat and at the first opportunity he is thrown away like an old box. It may also be that we are many and the benches much fewer, so perhaps the attorney on duty should favor this continuous recycling. Yet it is so evident that in the long run continuity pays off, as does the seriousness in pursuing it: just look at the examples of Gasperini at Atalanta and Inzaghi at Lazio “.
After Udine 2009, no one offered you continuity?
“I gave up for this, I wanted something in which I could decide, affect. Albania arrived, I asked for carte blanche, I got it: my goal was to shape the mentality of my team and convey the desire to pursue something extraordinary. at the beginning nobody believed it, but after the first year and a half of running in, in which I learned and understood many things, in the second we were exceptional. The mentality of the Albanian player has changed, now they believe it, they have stopped thinking that others are all phenomena and that Albania has already been beaten “.
And how did it happen in Azerbaijan?
“I said no to some Italian offers, I didn’t want it to end in the usual way. Other national teams had also looked for me, but I had already been to Baku and I remembered it as a beautiful city. I thought it was worth it. Now I live there and I live well, I have a beautiful house on the Caspian Sea, the most beautiful I have ever had in my life. I have a fantastic interpreter who studied six years in Rome and who speaks perfect Italian. And in two days I watch the whole championship live Azerbaijani “.
All?
“The championship is made up of eight teams, I see two matches on Saturday and two on Sunday and I study my talents. On the other hand, those of the national team all play at home, except for one that I fished in Ukraine”.
Will it be a tough job to get anything good out of it?
“I took Albania which was 83rd in the Fifa rankings and took them to 22nd place, leaving the European Championship only by a cursed goal. There are stories that can be repeated. My boys are young, they want to grow. I’m trying to make them change their way of living football with too much thoughtlessness, to explain to them that it is indeed a game, but very serious “.
They will get an idea by seeing Ronaldo up close.
“For them it will be stimulating and not only because of Cristiano but for Portugal everything: they are strong, they can win the World Cup. But I told my boys that they must not be afraid and be passive, otherwise we will only play the game of the strongest” .
What mandate do you have from the Azerbaijani federation?
“I have to change the mentality of the players and make the whole football movement grow. Azerbaijan has a lot of resources and in terms of facilities they are exceptional. In Baku there are two Olympic stadiums, including the very modern one with 70,000 seats, and six or seven stadiums. English style that are gems, all with covered stands and perfect lawns, which hold 10-15 thousand people. There are ideal conditions to do a great job, but you have to be able to get them excited “.
Would he ever have thought that one day he would become a citizen of the world, but of a peripheral world?
“It was my free choice. Two years ago I gave up on the latest offer in Serie A and I decided to dive back into some adventure around the world. It is my personal challenge: I want to show that miracles can be done more than once in a lifetime”.
What would be the Azerbaijani miracle?
“I would like to take advantage of the World Cup qualifiers to lay the foundations and then try to make the coup and bring Azerbaijan to the European Championships. We are growing, in the last five games we have been four times without conceding a goal, but we have a damned effort to score one and we also missed some penalties. But the organization is starting to see each other and for them it is already a lot to do four races without losing “.
Don’t you feel marginalized?
“Absolutely not. I live following my curiosity. Before knowing it, Albania seemed very far away and instead I discovered it closer than I thought. Azerbaijan is also distant geographically but it fascinates me to know in depth ways, places, mentality different “.
How’s it going with Covid in Baku?
“Much better than in Italy. More than the lockdown, the curfew in the autumn for the war with Armenia for Nagorno Karabakh was harsh: martial law was in force and after 9 pm you could not go out, it was not days very nice. But then fortunately the conflict ended and Azerbaijan has regained lands that even the UN resolutions have always considered its own “.
Will Baku be the last adventure of your career?
“But let’s not joke. My friend Ranieri is 70 years old and he is still at full speed. I have something like five years younger, I’m a kid. After the coach I would like to be the technical director, I think I have the right open mind “.
What have you learned in these years away from here?
“Not much on a technical-tactical level, but a lot on a training level. I have improved in assuming responsibilities, I have learned not to be devoured when a situation becomes incandescent. I have expanded my assessment skills, to find other ways when the ones that you are used to taking them closed. Experiences like this open your head, open your horizons. Now I know how to manage the men in training who are entrusted to me, I know when they need pampering or some metaphorical beating “.

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