Francesco Farioli is now being tipped to take Napoli back to the top of Serie A a year-and-a-half after the Nice boss was interviewed for the Rangers job.
Nice’s form may have dipped a little since the turn of the year – previously the ‘best of the rest’ in France’s Ligue 1 and now facing a battle to hang onto their European spot – but one of Europe’s most exciting young tacticians will still emerge from his first season in one of the continent’s ‘top five’ leagues with his reputation greatly enhanced.
34-year-old Francesco Farioli still has Nice just three points off second place. His appointment – a risk considering that he had only ever worked as a head coach in Turkish football – is proving to be one of the most inspired calls of the Sir Jim Ratcliffe era on the French riviera.
Rangers held talks with Francesco Farioli in 2022
Rangers, then, were very much ahead of the curve when it comes to Farioli. Long before he was a household name across the Channel, Rangers interviewed the one-time Qatar Under-17 coach (The Athletic).
Now, having proven to be a big hit in France while being mentioned as the man to build on Luciano Spalletti’s Scudetto-winning success at Napoli, one wonders where Rangers would have found themselves had they handed the reigns to Farioli rather than the maligned Mick Beale when firing Giovanni van Bronckhorst in late-2022.
“He was a very, very humble and reserved boy,” Lorenzo Del Pinto, who worked with Farioli at Benevento when he was an assistant to the now-Brighton boss Roberto de Zerbi, tells Calciomercato.
“You could see that he had a great desire both to work and to learn. He spent a lot of time on the the laptop, studying a lot of tactics. I think his secret is hard work, which he does both on and off the pitch.
“I would see (him at Napoli doing) very well on a tactical level, because Napoli has the 4-3-3 within them.
“The Azzurri are experiencing a moment of transition. And it is not certain that, with Francesco Calzona, they can express good football. I think that, in any case, the Neapolitan team is a right fit for Farioli.
“Most likely, as Spalletti did, he would put a lot of passion into his Napoli.”
Napoli are the ‘right fit for Farioli’
Beale may have failed at Ibrox. But at least his successor, the ‘exceptionally consistent’ Philippe Clement, is going some way to exercising the ghosts of his predecessor’s ill-fated era.
Wednesday’s stirring fightback at Kilmarnock means Rangers – who have still only won one Premiership title since returning to the top flight in 2016 – go into this weekend’s round of fixtures two points clear of Celtic.
The Gers host Motherwell at Ibrox on Saturday at 3pm.
