Maurizio Sarri returns as Lazio coach
Details of the deal were not disclosed by the club but Italian news agency Adnkronos reported that the former Chelsea and Juventus manager Sarri has rejoined Lazio on a two-year contract with an option for a third season.
Sarri resigned as Lazio coach in March 2024, almost three years into his tenure. They finished seventh in Serie A in 2023-24, having finished second the previous season.
ALSO READ | Antoine Griezmann signs contract extension at Atletico Madrid
'Maurizio Sarri has returned home. His return is a choice of heart, conviction and vision,' club president Claudio Lotito said in a statement.
'With him we want to resume a path interrupted too soon, aware that together we can bring back enthusiasm, identity and ambition. Welcome back to your home Commander.'
Lazio finished seventh this season under Marco Baroni.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


News18
35 minutes ago
- News18
AC Milan Boss Hails Modric: 'Top Player.. Technical Brilliance And Leadership'
Last Updated: AC Milan head coach Massimiliano Allegri announced Luka Modric will join the team in August, missing the pre-season tour. AC Milan head coach Massimiliano Allegri disclosed that Luka Modric will join the team in August, which is why he has been left out of the squad that traveled to Singapore for their first pre-season friendly. Modric joined the Serie A side after contributing to Real Madrid's journey to the semi-finals of the FIFA Club World Cup. Consequently, he was omitted from the squad for their pre-season tour, which includes stops in Hong Kong and Perth after facing Arsenal on July 23 to play against Liverpool and Perth Glory. 'We expect him to join us in August. He's a top player who will add technical brilliance and leadership to the squad," said Allegri in the pre-game press conference. Who Is Luka Modric? Since arriving from Tottenham Hotspur in 2012, Modric overcame a challenging start to become a legendary figure at Real Madrid. With nearly 600 appearances and almost 30 major trophies, including a record six UEFA Champions League titles and four La Liga crowns, Modric's impact has been monumental. Allegri has returned to AC Milan, having previously managed the team for a four-year stint between 2010 and 2014, during which he led them to a Serie A title in 2010/11 and won the Italian Supercup the following year. Allegri's latest tenure as head coach was with Juventus from 2021 to 2024, marking his second stint with the team. In his first stint, he won five consecutive Serie A titles from 2014/15 to 2018/19 and guided the team to two Champions League finals. Milan reappointed Allegri after Conceicao's five-month tenure left the team without European football next season. The Italian coach is optimistic despite this setback, focusing on the positives. 'It's a different situation than it was 15 years ago. It's not only football that has changed, but the world in general. The positive aspect of not playing in the Champions League is that we'll have more time to work and build a team. The negative is that we're not playing on the big stage. But I'm a glass-half-full kind of guy, so we have time and the chance to work on qualifying. I'm confident in my players, because I think this is a talented group with a good mindset," he added. (With inputs from IANS) view comments Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.


Indian Express
41 minutes ago
- Indian Express
How dictatorship killed cricket's dream and patronised football in Italy and Argentina
Italy's Benito Mussolini and Argentina's Juan Peron were dictators in different ideological guises that broke their countries. The Italian instigated war and destruction; the Argentine inflation and bankruptcy. Both used football as a nation-unifying, propaganda tool; and indirectly stubbed out from their fields and consciousness the other major sport that arrived with the English traders and imperialists in their countries. Cricket — the second most watched sport in the world, but with its imprints limited to a dozen outposts of the Commonwealth. A century later, Italy qualified for the T20 cricket World Cup, even as the probability of missing out on the World Cup that they really care for looms. But cricket in Italy was as old as football. Horatio Nelson's soldiers were the first to play a game on Italian soil, when they anchored in Naples in 1793. A century and unification of the country later, the British traders opened the Genoa Cricket and Football Club in 1893, which dropped cricket from its name but is a Serie A regular. Italy cricket's grand old man Simone Gambino fishes out the history. 'Italy was unified in 1870 and the English helped a lot to unify. They did pour the mass of capital into industry in the north of Italy. Textile industry in particular. And in Milan, Genoa, and Turin, the three cities in the northwest of Italy, there were many Englishmen who started playing cricket and football. This was the beginning of football,' he says. The English names the English assigned to the cities remain. But cricket did not. 'Mussolini hated the English. So everything that was English, he kicked it out, and obviously cricket disappeared,' he says. He built grand football stadiums across the country, restructured the league, pumped in money, and hosted the 1934 edition of the World Cup that Italy won but under the shadow of rigging games. The story goes that Mussolini invited Ivan Eklind, the referee appointed to take charge of the hosts' semi-final with Austria, to an exclusive dinner. The next day he awarded a controversial penalty to Italy. Italians defended the crown the next edition, but Jonathan Wilson, in his seminal book Inverting the Pyramid wrote about the manager Vittorio Pozzo 'made full use of the prevailing [fascist] militarism to dominate and motivate his side.' A decade later in Argentina, Peron too recognised football's infinite powers to galvanise his political narrative. His government granted generous loans to football clubs to construct stadiums and infrastructure. His favourite club Racing received 16,700,000 pesos to build the Estadio Presidente Perón. His wife Eva, though, would play a bigger role wiping the slate of cricket clean. In 1947, she sought the outfield of Buenos Aires Cricket Club for a fundraising function. The cricket body refused and she ordered the wooden pavilion to be razed down and burned. Cricket historians consider it a symbolic moment when cricket in the country, popular from the late 19th century, met a brutal death, as chronicled fabulously by journalists Timothy Abraham and James Coyne in the book Evita Burned Down the Pavilion. Involved in the crossfire was Argentina's greatest cricketer, Clement Gibson, son of planters who settled in Argentina in the 19th century. He was a swing bowler with a devastating leg-cutter that pitched on leg-stump and hit the off-stick, and a celebrated figure in Cambridge and Sussex. In a tour game against the touring Australians in 1921, he grabbed six wickets in the second innings to mastermind a famous comeback after England XI were bundled out for 43 in the first innings. A decade later, Douglas Jardine summoned him to attend a camp for the Bodyline series. But he picked up an injury and shortly returned to Argentina with a healthy haul of 249 wickets at 28, to look after the wild sprawling ranches. After a dispute over his brewery, the first lady commissioned two sets of hitmen to kill him. He had fled to the family's northernmost ranch. They never returned, assumed dead and Gibson lived till he was 76, making occasional visits to his son in England. Cricket, by then, was confined to the few English families that still lived in the country and survived as a relic of the era of British planters. Argentina still plays cricket and in an expanded T20 World Cup format the ICC is envisioning could one day qualify. But on the whims and vendettas of leaders and dictators hinged the fate of sports. Perhaps, cricket would not have thrived in Latin America or Italy or the Netherlands. Perhaps, the English did not stay long enough. Even if they were, cricket was never the sport of masses, confined to the gentry clubs, in all these countries. Football was the masses' opium in the barrios and favellas. The game did flourish in the nitrate mining communities of Atacama Desert in Chile as well as Mexico, Uruguay and Panama (where West Indies great George Headley was born). Maybe, cricket could not capture the local rhythms as football did, or captured its sensibilities. Or you could imagine, the subcontinent's sport of choice if the English had not lingered too long. Or if it were the Portuguese or the Dutch or the Spaniard. Perhaps it still could have been cricket. But Italy qualifying for the T20 World Cup makes you dwell on conjectures. What if Mussolini and Peron encouraged cricket? Or the princes of India's states patronised football? History of sports is thus the history of empires and emperors too.


United News of India
3 hours ago
- United News of India
Barbosa double fires Cruzeiro to 4-0 win over Juventude
Rio De Janeiro, July 21 (UNI) Gabriel Barbosa struck two second-half goals as leaders Cruzeiro cruised to a 4-0 home win over Juventude in Brazil's Serie A championship. '' Christian Cardoso put the hosts ahead by volleying home from close range and Barbosa doubled the lead with an assured finish following Kaio Jorge's cross on Sunday. Barbosa converted from the penalty spot after Marcos Paulo stamped on Kaio Jorge while contesting a loose ball. Carlos Eduardo completed the rout in stoppage time, latching onto Yannick Bolasie's nodded pass to send a looping header into the top-left corner. The result leaves Cruzeiro with 33 points from 15 games, three points ahead of second-placed Flamengo, while Juventude sits 18th, 22 points further back. Despite his team's impressive start to the season, Barbosa said talk of a title challenge was premature. "I've won two Brazilian Serie A titles and I know that nobody is champion after 15 rounds," the former Flamengo striker said. "There is a long way to go. No team is going to be thinking about the title at this stage of the season. We are taking things game by game. Our next game against Corinthians on Wednesday is going to be tough away from home and we're going to do our best to win." In other Brazilian Serie A fixtures on Sunday, Flamengo won 1-0 at home to Fluminense, Palmeiras prevailed 3-2 at home to Atletico Mineiro, Botafogo won 1-0 at Sport Recife, Vitoria edged Bragantino 1-0 at home and Internacional beat Ceara 1-0 in Porto Alegre. UNI/XINHUA BM