Paratici: ‘Allegri more flexible’

By Football Italia staff

Juventus sporting director Fabio Paratici explains Antonio Conte wanted “functionality”, while Max Allegri is “more flexible, he doesn’t have one system”.

The director was a big part of the Bianconeri revival, taking care of transfers along with Giuseppe Marotta.

The latter has now moved to Inter, with his protege responsible for the sporting area in his absence.

“I think we were very well matched, complementary,” Paratici explained to Sky.

“I’d deal with the purely technical side of things, the scouting, the relationship with the agents, identifying the players.

“Then there was a meeting with him, he’s a very knowledgeable person who knows football and knows the numbers really well, so he’d tell you how far you could go in a negotiation.

“The best thing is that we were so well matched. I carried things until the final stage, then he intervened with his experience and helped me make as few mistakes as possible.

“I think the toughest negotiation, overall, was the one for [Carlos] Tevez. He’s a player we contacted at the end of our first year [2010-11] at Juventus, when we hadn’t had a good season.

“We had to relaunch Juve and we contacted Tevez all the same, even though we hadn’t qualified for the Champions League. It’s hard to get the great players when you’re not in the Champions League.

“He said immediately though: ‘Yes, even if we are not in the Champions League, I will come to Juve’.

“The deal didn’t get done for other reasons, financial and so on, but we stayed in touch because it was always my objective to bring Tevez to Juventus.

“Conte and Allegri? The transfer market with Conte was down to a player’s functionality with respect to what he wanted him to do.

“That’s a legitimate thing, indeed it makes the job of those who are looking for players easier.

“Conte had a style of play and, quite rightly, we had to find players who suited a system.

“Allegri, in that sense, is more flexible. He doesn’t have one system, he’s more open and has more solutions. So the transfer targets are expanded a bit more.”

The Bianconeri’s big ambition remains to win the Champions League, having been beaten in the final in both 2015 and 2017.

“It’s our ambition, but not an obsession.”

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