On February 9, Massimo Carrera was appointed coach of the Bari club, in Serie C. Curious fate that that of this former assistant of Conte, spent in particular in the Champions League with Spartak Moscow.
From Conte’s assistant to his disciple
After playing with Antonio Conte in Juventus in the 1990s, Massimo Carrera joined him in the bianconero technical staff in the summer of 2011. He stayed there for three years, the time to soak up his tactics and mark the workforce by his acuteness for the game. Carrera will even be the head coach of Juventus at the start of the 2012-2013 season, replacing a Conte entangled in the Calcioscommesse. For example, he will be on the bench during the bianconeri’s 4-2 victory in Supercoppa 2012 against Napoli.
Carrera then follows Conte at the head of the Nazionale when he leaves Juventus to the general surprise in 2014. He will remain there for two years of Conte’s term, actively participating in the good Italian campaign at Euro 2016, despite a effective more than average.
It was after this competition that Carrera decided to go it alone. He flew to Moscow to become Spartak’s assistant coach, but quickly found himself propelled to the head of the club in August 2016.
With love from Russia
At Spartak Moscow, Carrera succeeds beyond the wildest expectations of the supporters. Very quickly, it was important to have a leg reminiscent of Antonio Conte’s, especially in terms of the low position of the defense and the preference given to individual marking over zone marking.
The main difference with his mentor is that Carrera uses the 4-2-3-1, a formation Conte happily beat in Juventus’ time. A follower of the Lavolpian ball exit, he made Spartak Moscow practice a position game which is not also unlike that of Guardiola. A difference is however to be found in the pressing, which at Carrera is very loose at first before trying to concentrate it in the middle, where his Spartak has the numerical superiority.
With this tactic, Carrera succeeds at Spartak Moscow in doing what no coach has done since 2001: win the Russian championship. He will then win the Supercopa and give supporters prestigious matches in the Champions League: 1-1 against Liverpool, 5-1 against Sevilla.
The caesura, Greece, then the return to the fold
Thanked for Moscow at the end of 2018, Carrera traveled for a year throughout Europe, observing the training of the teams that fascinated him. He draws valuable lessons from it, which he seeks to put in place by accepting the coaching job of AEK Athens in December 2019.
In Greece, Carrera will qualify AEK in the Europa League group stages but will not benefit for long. A relatively poorer series of results and the country’s appeal got the better of his tenure in Athens.
In the end, his return to the country is done in the most unlikely of ways. While he could very well have claimed a Serie A bench, Massimo Carrera made the choice of Bari and Serie C. Rather well in place in group C of the championship, Bari could be the beautiful story of Carrera, who aims to lead the club as high as possible from the bottom, with humility as to his career. A victory and a draw are for the moment two too early results to judge of his work, but we can already greet the gesture, a little romantic on the edges, and which is done less and less in this time when the calcio is liberalize.
Italy needs its Massimo Carrera. It is up to them to prove, like others before them, that starting from the bottom and reaching the top makes sense and above all is possible.
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