We take a closer look at Francesco Guidolin, the new coach of English Premier League side, Swansea City.
Since the departure of Garry Monk in early December, there has been much speculation about who Swansea City would appoint as manager to replace the Englishman. Various names were linked with the role, including Brendan Rogers and Ryan Giggs, before the Swansea chairman, Huw Jenkins, announced last week that Francesco Guidolin was to take charge of the Swans.
The announcement drew many puzzled looks from many, not least the Swansea players. Their captain, Ashley Williams, admitted that he and some of the players had been forced to conduct an internet search to identify the style of play and training methods of their new manager. However, those who are followers of Serie A will have been aware of Guidolin as the man who led Udinese to successive top four finishes in Serie A, with a team consisting of the likes of Alexis Sanchez, Samir Handanovic, Juan Cuadrado, Gokhan Inler and Antonio Di Natale.
As a player, Guidolin was a fairly limited midfielder, spending most of his career at Hellas Verona, interspersed by loan spells at the likes of Sambenedettese, Pistoiese and Bologna, before heading down the A4 to Venezia, in 1984, for a two year stint before finishing his playing career.
On his retirement as a player, Guidolin immediately started his coaching career at the youth team of his local side, Giorgione. He later progressed to head coach of the first team in 1988, thus starting off a 30 year coaching career that saw him coach, amongst others, Treviso, Fano, Empoli, Ravenna, Atalanta, Vicenza, Udinese, Bologna, Palermo, Genoa, Monaco, Palermo (again), Parma, before returning to coach Udinese again between 2010 and 2014.
After finishing thirteenth in Serie A with Udinese, Guidolin decided to remove himself from the pressures of daily coaching, and took up a role as a technical scout on behalf of the Pozzo family who own Udinese, Granada in Spain, and Watford in England.
Guidolin may actually have arrived in England much earlier than now. He was reportedly on the verge of joining Flavio Briatore’s Queens Park Rangers in 2007, but the agreement stalled due difficulty in agreeing personal terms.
Guidolin’s most successful managerial period came during his second stint at Udinese. He arrived at the Stadio Friuli at the start of the 2010/11 season, following a season where the Bianconeri had finished in fifteenth place, only nine points clear of the bottom three. That season, Guidolin took Udinese to fourth place, as the likes of Sanchez, Di Natale and Inler showed why they have now become household names. Udinese’s performances were sufficient to earn them a place in the UEFA Champions League qualifying round, a feat that saw Guidolin deservedly named coach of the year in Italy.
At the start of the 2011/12 season, Udinese were unable to progress from the Champions League qualifying round, falling 3-1 on aggregate to Arsenal in a two-legged tie. Their elimination meant they were placed in the Europa League, where they knocked out in the round of 16 by the Dutch side, AZ Alkmaar. Despite their European disappointment, and also the loss of Sanchez and Inler to Barcelona and Napoli respectively, their league form showed no sign of suffering, and Guidolin guided them to third place, albeit they finished 20 points behind Scudetto winners, Juventus.
The following year, the 2012/13 season, Udinese again failed to get through the Champions League qualifying round, falling to the Portuguese team, SC Braga, on penalties. Their Europa League campaign fared little better, as they finished bottom of a group that contained Liverpool, Anzhi Mahkachkala and Young Boys. Their league form did not suffer greatly however, as Guidolin guided them to fifth place in the Serie A table, once again qualifying for the Europa League.
By the standards of his earlier performances, Guidolin’s last season at the Stadio Friuli was a failure as the team limped to thirteenth place in the Serie A table, and were once again eliminated at the final qualifying round of the Europa League by Slovan Liberec of the Czech Republic. That performance should however be weighed against the fact that each season, Guidolin had been forced to watch as the club’s better players were sold for significant sums. The likes of Sanchez, Inler, Juan Cuadrado, Mehdi Benatia, Handanovic, Cristian Zapata, Mauricio Isla and Kwadwo Asamoah left the Friuli during Guidolin’s tenure at the club.
It is clear from the comments of Huw Jenkins, that Guidolin’s ability to achieve success with a team within a constrained budget, both at Vicenza in the early days of his coaching career and latterly at Udinese, is one of the reasons why he has been appointed as Swansea manager.
It has been a consistent pattern of his teams that they have constantly developed players, thus enabling them to be sold on for significant sums and profits. At the same time, Guidolin has the knowledge, confidence and ability to identify the players who should be brought in and can adapt to his style of play, thus enabling the team to maintain the performance levels of previous seasons.
Guidolin’s role as technical adviser to the Pozzo family will no doubt assist him in identifying players who will fit into the style which he wishes to play, and he has already identified several players who will fit that bill. It is likely that Alberto Paloschi will join Swansea from Chievo in the coming days, and the Italian striker will be the focal point in leading the attack for Guidolin.
Guidolin’s first game gave the Swansea fans a glimpse of what they can expect. Guidolin has had the players working hard in training with a view to developing the pace and physicality which his Udinese side excelled at, and selecting a winger, Wayne Routledge, as the focal point of the attack against Everton showed that. At the same time, Guidolin’s tactical astuteness identified immediately that the way to cause Everton problems was with the pressing game similar to that which he sometimes engaged at Udinese.
The plan bore fruition against Everton as the home side were unable to adopt their usual approach of passing the ball out from the back, and saw a direct reward in the build up to Swansea’s first goal. Under pressure, John Stones under-hit a pass back to goalkeeper Tim Howard and Andre Ayew got to the ball before Howard drawing the foul. Gylfi Sigurdsson despatched the resulting penalty, and Swansea went on to win 2-1.
As a manager, Guidolin is tactically astute, passionate, an excellent motivator and flexible throughout matches. He is however prone to over analysing, and that can sometimes be counter-productive. On the flip side, his flexibility and tactical awareness means that Swansea fans should not be surprised to see their side to change formation in forthcoming games, particularly reverting to playing three at the back. Indeed, where opposition teams play only one centre-forward, it would be no surprise if Guidolin were to set up the team in the 3-6-1 formation introduced by Pep Guardiola at Barcelona and Bayern, and which Guidolin observed at close quarters in a week-long trip to Bayern’s training camp earlier this season.
There is little doubt that Guidolin will improve Swansea in terms of performance, results and tactically, whilst also likely assisting with the development of players in the youth set-up to the long-term benefit of the club. Credit should go to the Swansea chairman, Jenkins, for identifying Guidolin as the man to take Swansea forward; there is little doubt that his time at the club will be successful.
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