Juventus director denies any Guardiola contact, continues to ‘evaluate’ situation

The 2018-19 Serie A season officially ended this weekend, although as far as Juventus were concerned, their season was over quite some time ago, with an eighth straight title in the bag but Champions League disappointment once again. Max Allegri has paid the price for that “failure”, and since then, the Old Lady have been in figuring out whom to turn to next.

Maurizio Sarri, Simone Inzaghi, Mauricio Pochettino have all been linked with the vacancy, with varying degrees of certainty, and while the Chelsea head coach appears to be the front-runner, nothing is set in stone yet. All three candidates have also been busy, which has necessarily limited the scope of the job search.

One coach who’s already on summer vacation is Pep Guardiola, which perhaps contributed to the sensational reports late last week about him taking over at the Old Lady. Juventus director Fabio Paratici has however joined others in denying that bit of silliness, even if some sense was made of it thanks to a potential Champions League ban for Manchester City — as if UEFA were to actually punish a big team?

“We have clear ideas and are evaluating the situation. Until all the competitions have concluded, it seems only fair to remain quiet, out of respect for everyone.

“It’s a strange world, this. We’ve never had contact with Guardiola and never thought about him. He is under contract, so it all seems very strange. We know this is what our world is like and we have to accept that.”

Inzaghi’s now done, after Sunday’s final matchday in Serie A. Sarri will be done on Wednesday. Pochettino will be done on Saturday. Juventus will surely swing into action soon, especially as they’re holding off on other transfer activities until the new coach is signed.

“We don’t need to create headlines or go for one upmanship, we just have to build the best possible squad. We will act in accordance with the directives of our new Coach, so must wait for him before we make any moves,”

-Fabio Paratici; source: DAZN via Football Italia

Whatever may be — Sarri or no Sarri — at least it sounds like we won’t have to deal with a coaching uncertainty for as long as last summer. (Lampard, who looks to be the leading candidate should Sarri end up leaving, will be done on Monday.)