It is the team of the moment. Nobody at Cagliari expected to have 12 points after five fixtures. And nobody was convinced that the rossoblù would look this cohesive and this dangerous after a summer of sweeping changes — beginning at the top, where Guido Angelozzi departed and Pietro Accardi arrived. The incoming sporting director has been busy every day since setting foot in Sardinia, assembling a squad that now contains two of the most talked-about young Italian players in the division. This evening they host Juventus. Accardi spoke to Pirisi at length on Saturday morning, and the interview ranges across every dimension of the club’s present and future — with one answer of particular interest to the rest of Italian football.
The Club He Found — Pisacane, Family, and Building Through the Present
On his arrival and what he discovered: “I found a beautiful reality — it is good to work somewhere where you feel well with the people. They made me feel at home immediately.” On the difference from his previous role at Empoli: “The responsibilities have increased. Here you represent an entire people and you must be equal to that. As at Empoli I also feel a strong sense of family here.” On the year away from football after his difficult spell at Sampdoria: “I used it to update myself, to study, and to reflect on the mistakes I made. I went to watch matches, confronted myself with colleagues, and deepened my knowledge of certain managers — because today, even more than before, they are central to an institutional project. Players have a greater need than ever for managers who are capable of communicating on the pitch.”
On Fabio Pisacane: “A complete manager — he was one of those I had studied. I am happy to be able to work with him: the moment you deal with him every day you become even more aware of the professional he is, of the idea of football he has. He is a visionary and has an extraordinary capacity for managing human resources. He seems to have been in Serie A his whole life — he is much more experienced and mature relative to his actual experience.”
Romano to Juventus — “Not in January…”
The sentence every Juventus follower has been waiting for. Accardi is direct and measured simultaneously: Romano will not be leaving Cagliari in January. The ellipsis is doing significant work — it does not close the door permanently, and no serious reading of the interview would suggest that Accardi is unaware of what Carnevali, Ottolini, and Chiellini attended the Dall’Ara to observe. But the Cagliari position is clear: the winter window is not the moment, Romano is essential to what Pisacane is building, and the club has no intention of selling a player in the middle of its most successful season in years.
On Romano’s ceiling, Accardi is expansive: “He can reach Barella’s levels — but for now he must keep working hard.” The Barella comparison is the most ambitious possible benchmark for an Italian central midfielder of his generation, and Accardi deploys it with the confidence of a director who has watched Romano every day in training and in competitive football. The caveat — “keep working hard” — is the qualifying clause that prevents the comparison becoming reckless.
“Watch Maldini” — Accardi’s Second Unprompted Endorsement
The third chapter — “Maldini e i giovani” — contains Accardi’s pointed instruction regarding the second of Cagliari’s most prominent assets: Daniel Maldini, who after a long and not always fortunate journey across Italian football has found at Cagliari the environment in which his qualities can be properly expressed. “Watch Maldini,” Accardi says — and the observation that the player who bore one of football’s most celebrated surnames without always fulfilling the expectations attached to it is now doing so, at Cagliari under Pisacane, is its own story of redemption and correct placement.
Adzić, Vicario, and the Spalletti Certainty — Chapter Four
The final chapter — “L’idea Adzić, Vicario top” — addresses the most directly Juventus-related elements of the tactical collision coming tonight. Accardi on Vicario — the Juventus goalkeeper on loan from Tottenham who faces his former club on the other side of the pitch: described as “top” by the director who has watched every minute of what has been a very fine Cagliari season. On Adzić — the Juventus trequartista on loan at Sassuolo who scored the 94th-minute winner against his parent club in September: Accardi had an idea about him during his own time studying the market, and the paywalled chapter maps what that idea was and how it connects to the evening’s tactical picture. And on Spalletti: Accardi’s “certainty” about the Juventus manager — a professional assessment from the sporting director of the team sitting two points above his tonight — is the kind of measured, respectful competitor’s verdict that carries more weight than any amount of punditry.
