Garcia blasts De Laurentiis: ‘Napoli President doesn’t know football’ | OneFootball

Former Napoli coach Rudi Garcia has hit out at President Aurelio De Laurentiis. ‘He tried to tell me how to field the team. He knows cinema, but not football.’

The pair had a difficult rapport during Garcia’s brief experience at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona from July to November 2023.

Taking over from Luciano Spalletti with the Scudetto celebrations still in full swing, Garcia lasted only eight victories, four draws and four defeats in all competition before he was sacked.

Garcia lashes out at De Laurentiis

epa10700211 New SSC Napoli head coach Rudi Garcia (R) and SSC Napoli President Aurelio De Laurentiis during his presentation at a press conference in Naples, Italy, 19 June 2023. EPA-EFE/CIRO FUSCO

Speaking to YouTube Channel Carrè, Garcia took out his frustrations on President De Laurentiis.

“I thought he was a gentleman,” said the coach.

“I knew it was taking a risk with a team that had just won the Scudetto, but it was Napoli and it was Serie A. I wanted a defender like Aguerd and a powerful midfielder, we could not think of simply repeating what had come the year before. Instead, we signed promising players for the future.

“This season, I saw that they invested a lot in players like Alessandro Buongiorno and Scott McTominay.”

De Laurentiis has suggested he made a mistake sticking with Garcia as long as he did, even though that season he went through four different coaches.

“The real shock would’ve been if he had kept me, maybe he would’ve qualified for the Champions League instead of finishing 10th,” replied Garcia.

“Perhaps he said those things because he realised that he was a bit of a fool and made strategic errors. He showed himself to be a person who got involved in things that weren’t his business.

“I am 60 years old, I cannot go around letting a President tell me how to field my team. De Laurentiis knows cinema, but not much about football.”

Napoli decided to reboot the squad with big investments this summer for coach Antonio Conte, including Buongiorno, McTominay, Billy Gilmour, Romelu Lukaku and David Neres.

The tension was palpable at Napoli after Spalletti left, but Garcia reveals the extent of the unhappiness behind the scenes.

“I found a situation where everyone wanted to leave: the staff and half the players. De Laurentiis started poking his nose in on everything, from the tactical system to my choices. I told him, I’m sorry, but at the age of 60 I cannot have someone dictating the line-up.

“He wanted me to take some players off at half-time. During the training sessions, he’d tell the groundskeeper to move the net by 50cm.

“I was made to pay for telling him to stay in his lane. He replied: ‘If you don’t listen to me, then I can’t protect you.’

“The President was focused more on the idea of winning the Champions League than bringing calm to the place. There were two players who needed to renew their contracts, Victor Osimhen and Piotr Zielinski. One renewed a long time later, the other never did, and this had consequences.”