Former Juventus manager Gigi Maifredi has distanced himself from comparisons with current coach Thiago Motta, while offering insights into his own tumultuous tenure at the club and critiquing Motta’s approach.
In a candid interview with Corriere dello Sport, Maifredi addressed the parallels being drawn between his ill-fated 1990/91 season at Juventus and Motta’s current struggles. “For months I’ve been associated with Motta, but what do I have to do with Motta? I had fourteen players and two foreigners, instead of three. In the first twenty games, we were first or second, the situation deteriorated in February, in Genoa against Sampdoria, where in the first half we had played exceptional football,” Maifredi stated.
Reflecting on his Juventus experience, Maifredi recounted a pivotal moment: “In that match against Sampdoria, referee Amendolia awarded a penalty that warranted immediate dismissal. Galia anticipated Mancini who fell in the area. Vialli, 1-0. That’s when I realized that the club had little political clout.”
Maifredi also revealed internal conflicts, saying, “After the match with Cagliari that we could have won 8-0 and instead ended 2-2, I got really angry, they had organized the Christmas holidays without telling me. At the table, I had told Montezemolo that I would leave at the end of the season. Montezemolo was an extraordinary character, but he was too busy doing other things. I saw him on Sunday at the match. The break? ‘Find someone else,’ were my exact words. I’m from Lograto, I don’t have a very high IQ, I made a mistake.”
Turning his attention to Motta’s current predicament at Juventus, Maifredi offered a scathing assessment: “He has thirty players, each better than the other, he was wrong to want to bring to Turin the football he had shown in Bologna. Where he had Aebischer, Freuler and Ferguson, a midfield of very high intellectual level and very receptive. The interchanges with those three came naturally. Locatelli is an excellent player, I love Koopmeiners, but he’s a fish out of water. Thiago should have embraced a new path also because the objectives and expectations changed on him. It’s evident that in a club like Juve, the logic and rhythms are very different.”
Maifredi concluded with a reflection on his own career path: “With hindsight, I can say that I too would have needed to coach a team halfway between Bologna and Juventus for a couple of years. Roma wanted me, if I had gone there I would have started to understand the general trend and, once at Juve, I could have done something more, also because in my head there was the possibility of changing the game, which was the reason why they had chosen me. The proposal, I wanted to dominate. In those years Gigi Maifredi was very fashionable.”
