Cagliari have chosen Rolando Maran as their new head coach. He penned a contract till 2020. They had decided to part ways with Diego Lopez last week and had to wait for Maran to work out the resolution of his contract with Chievo before making the official announcement.
Lopez was appointed in October after a slow start and the firing of Massimo Rastelli. A club legend, he had already coached here in 2013-2014. The Sardinian had a rough year, but managed to avoid the drop with a couple of clutch wins down the stretch. With the Uruguayan manager at the helm, they recorded nine victories, six draws and 15 losses.
The president Tommaso Giulini has elected to go with a more experienced coach, who had cut his teeth in the lower leagues for ten years before making it in Serie A with Catania in 2012 and then moving to Chievo two seasons later. His best campaigns were the first one with the Etnei, where they finished 9th and the second with the Flying Donkeys, where they concluded in 9th position.
Maran led the Gialloblù to three serene years, where they easily secured the permanence in Serie A. Despite being linked to other clubs basically every summer, he always ended up staying. However, the 2017/2018 season was subpar and Chievo was in hot water when the management sacked him and promoted Lorenzo D’Anna with three games to go.
In his previous team, Maran’s go-to scheme was 4-3-1-2, a tactic that Cagliari used with decent success before Joao Pedro’s suspension and also in the final few matches, with either Artur Ionita or Diego Farias as no.10. At Catania, he relied on 3-5-2 and 4-4-2. In Verona, he built the offence around Roberto Inglese, a striker with similar traits compared to Cagliari’s centre-forward Leonardo Pavoletti.
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