Who is the Italian idealist who may become the new coach of Ajax?

Although Erik ten Hag is still seen as the dream candidate in Amsterdam and Graham Potter was the first alternative The Telegraph suddenly the name of Francesco Farioli also appears. The coach of OGC Nice had a remarkable start to his coaching career before he settled on the Côte d'Azur last summer. Who is this young Italian who might succeed John van 't Schip?

by Sander Grasman

'Beauty will save the world', Francesco Farioli quotes the Russian writer Fedor Dostoyevsky in his graduation thesis and it is a first insight into the Italian's vision on football. It is not without reason that he subtitled his thesis 'The aesthetics of the game and the role of the goalkeeper'. He is an idealist who wants to emphasize the beauty of the sport.

The now 35-year-old Tuscan has never played high-level football himself. At an age when boys can slowly start dreaming of a debut in the Serie A, he sat in college listening to lessons about Jean-Paul Sartre, Georg Hegel and Immanuel Kant. However, he wanted to complete his philosophy studies with a study into the beauty of his favorite sport, and specifically into his favorite position on the field, that of the goalkeeper.

Farioli succeeded, but did not start working as a philosopher. On the other hand, he started a weblog on which he wrote analyzes of teams that intrigued him. Just as Pieter Zwart in the Netherlands and René Maric in Germany also aroused the interest of trainers, the young Farioli succeeded with none other than Roberto De Zerbi, who successively took him to Benevento and Sassuolo as a goalkeeper coach.

Turkish adventure

In 2021, he decided it was time to spread his own wings and moved to Fatih Karagümrük in Turkey. There is a practical reason why he could not start his coaching career in his own country. He had to move abroad because he was too young to follow the trainer's course in Italy. After good years in the Turkish league – during which he even broke the club's points record with Alanyaspor – OGC surprised Nice last summer with the arrival of the unknown Italian, whose start subsequently attracted the necessary international attention.

After thirteen games, Nice had only conceded four goals. In fact, during that period the team – after a difficult start to the season with matches against Lille OSC, Olympique Lyon and Paris Saint-Germain – even kept the goal clean for 748 consecutive minutes. That impressive series came to an end in the away match against Nantes. That rare goal conceded also meant the first defeat of the season.

And therein lies the crux for Farioli's team. Although the defensive organization is in good shape – the southern French still have the least defense with only 24 goals conceded, but they are no longer as impressive as the figures were before the winter break – it is very difficult to score. The criticism is therefore that Farioli must come up with a Plan B, otherwise European qualification could even be in jeopardy.

Playing style and method
While Farioli is a great admirer of the individual class of players like Lionel Messi and Gianluigi Buffon, he believes in a kind of controlled freedom for his own players. He also shed some light on this in his thesis: 'Being part of a team requires first and foremost the acceptance of common rules. These rules restrict the freedom of the individual players, but make the whole and the individual within that whole stronger.'

How does someone who is so focused on the beauty of the sport, who grew up under the wings of a coach like De Zerbi, but believes in limited freedom for his attacking players, allow his team to play? One of his most important tactics is manipulative pressing – whereby the opponent's backs are released somewhat, so that they can immediately be secured in possession – in order to frustrate the opponent's build-up.

On the ball, Farioli also tries to manipulate the opponent. Just like De Zerbi's Brighton, he lures the opponent towards him and then breaks out through quick combinations or long balls in the depth. Goalkeeper Marcin Bulka – given Farioli's love for his position, he will certainly enjoy a special status – also has a special role in the build-up. A far flight seems forbidden to him. Farioli sees the goalkeeper as the starting point for the build-up from the back.

Although he cannot boast of his own football experiences at the top and is even a number of years younger than his Brazilian captain Dante, Farioli knows how to convince his players of his view. If the Italian comes to Ajax this summer, that will also be his most important task, because most people can play football, but now there has to be a clear line in the game. The fact that fewer goals are conceded would be a good starting point.

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