How proud are you to be called “Mr. Salvation”?
(Serious). "Not at all."
How, how?
"Sometimes it's even easier. You arrive because things are going badly, expectations are zero, you can't do worse, a new chemistry is created, a solidity of purpose in the locker room, which wasn't there before."
However, it is a medal that few can show off, that of the five “impossible” saves achieved in Serie A.
«One day, Enzo Biagi asked Gianni Agnelli: “Do you consider yourself a sovereign without a crown?”. He answered him like this: “We men of Fiat have three principles. One: we don’t waste time listening to the opinions of others. Two: we never take ourselves too seriously; but - three - we take what we do terribly seriously”. Well, if you look at my career you’ll discover that the seasons in which I took over are less than half. I went from Lumezzane to Livorno, to Crotone, to Turin, Genoa and Udine, coaching with relative ease. Apart from Turin, where I already knew I couldn’t stay, I fought to start again once we had achieved safety. I did it in Salerno: I was confirmed, and that year Salernitana was never in the relegation zone».
Moral of the story?
"After my career as a footballer, I spent more time calmly coaching in Serie A, than engaged in impossible salvations. For this reason, the label of "Miracle Man", even when it may seem useful, or flattering, does not interest me."
I was struck by your match against Roma, last championship. To save themselves, Empoli could only win, and you, until the last minute of injury time, calmly repeated: "There's time... there's time...". Was he crazy, presumptuous, or did he have a crystal ball?
(Laughs heartily). "I was clear-headed. There was no point in worrying about what could happen: I had already worked, the boys too, I could only optimize that work by giving my players the right instructions. But when you get to the last game, the last point, the last minute, you already know what path you've taken. That's all that matters."
You could have lost, though.
"Oh, sure. That's why I know that those who are relegated by one point are never worse than those who are saved by one."
Davide Nicola, born in 1973, loves to shock. His trademark is his unmistakable long hair. In his first interview of the season he tells his story, his secrets, his philosophy: «You will discover that I have only one ambition. Always improve myself».
What did Davide Nicola want to do as a child?
«I started playing football late, because when I was a child there were no cell phones».
Do you know what I'm missing?
(Smiles). "It's not immediately obvious but it exists, it's this. I was born in 1973, and until I was ten I liked only one thing: running."
Run how?
«Just running. I was born in Luserna San Giovanni, a small town of seven thousand inhabitants in Val Pellice, a mountain area near Turin. My hometown, however, is Vigone, southwest of Turin. I would leave home running and start going from one town to another, often just for the pleasure of pushing myself further and further away».
Why?
“I liked the wind on your face while you run, the idea of freedom that it instinctively communicates to you.”
And his parents?
"Here's the thing. I was the only son, I have two sisters, one older and one younger. A very close-knit family, based on sharing, and so, when I went out on these trips, my mother was always anxious."
I believe so.
"In 1983, cell phones didn't exist yet. Every time she was worried that something would happen to me, she didn't know where I was, and my father had the idea of pushing me to limit my passion to soccer: "Run as much as you want, but do it on a playing field"».
What family does he come from?
"My father did many jobs. He started as a woodcutter, then he joined a small company that made Parmigiano Reggiano, which he really liked. That company closed and so he started from scratch and started working as a bricklayer, just enough to learn the principles of the trade, and then opened a small company, all his own. He did it for twenty years. He was a great example for me. I'm a bit like him: restless inside, passionate, eager to do and try. And then he was right about me."
In what?
«The horizons of freedom that I instinctively sought to grow up, I then found in the green rectangles of soccer fields».
And what did his mother do?
"Now she can enjoy her retirement with my father, but she worked for almost all her life in Vigone, as an Oss, a social health worker. A hard job, which she loved so much. The total passion for helping others, a generosity in giving, for me almost astonishing."
At home you had two incomes, but since there were five of you, you weren't rolling in money.
"Absolutely not, but we never lacked anything. In my family, the first lesson was this: nothing is achieved without effort, passion and hard work. Merit comes before anything else. It was the first lesson of my life, I fully agree with it, it is the one I try to pass on to those who work with me."
Do you feel very Savoyard?
(Laughter). "What the hell, Savoy! Now I'm a… bastard of Italy! Thanks to football I've traveled this country far and wide, some of the strongest experiences of my life, as is known, I had in the south."
The best thing about living in a small town, surrounded by nature?
"I grew up with all kinds of animals in front of my eyes. For me and my sisters it was a great lesson in creativity. Sometimes by looking at animals you also learn a lot about humans."
And then came the great farewell to this enchanted, protective, familiar world.
"I will never forget the scene when I left home at fourteen to join the Genoa youth sector. I remember my mother's eyes, in tears, at the door, and only now do I know what it means, the pain of separation, when a son goes away to find his own way."
In Genoa he finds himself alone, as in boarding school.
"It was a school for me. But my parents, my whole family, made enormous sacrifices to stay by my side, to see me play around, to come and visit me in Genoa."
He started playing professionally, while continuing to study.
"I have always been very curious about studying, even though I only really loved some subjects, while I struggled with others because I was thinking more about football. I got my diploma as a surveyor, and then I continued to study the ideas that fascinate me, as a self-taught person."
Do you know that on Youtube his famous speech before Lazio-Crotone has become a motivational classic? “Parties underestimated by everyone, considered inadequate, foolish or silly… we gave a message to the people, to the young people. Today, I would like their wishes not to remain only in their hearts”. Was he inspired or does he have an excellent ghost writer?
(Laughs.) “I never write a single line when I speak.”
And how is it going?
"It's simple. I speak off the cuff, starting from the situation we're in. And I always say what I think."
In that speech about dreams, some have even read Shakespearean reminiscences.
"You're welcome. If anything, listening to it again today, I see traces of a great passion of mine that few know about: Rango."
“Rango”? The cartoon about the pet chameleon that saves the Wild West town?
"I am a devourer of children's cartoons. I love the way in which that cinema, apparently for children, always manages to simplify, well, the most important things."
What is it in Rango that helped Davide Nicola to tell his exploits in Serie A?
"I see it as an intriguing metaphor on the history of man. Not everyone is lucky enough to be born already knowing what they will do in life, many times you start with an idea and then do something completely different, as happened to me. But, at a certain point, the test always arrives that allows you to demonstrate your quality."
You and your staff start from a “meticulous and obsessive” study of big data, but you also like to say that today in football we get bogged down with so many useless statistics. Isn’t that contradictory?
"Not at all. And I'll give you an example: one day after the match I heard someone say: "Empoli had 65% possession". It was obvious: we were losing three to zero, we were trying to come back. But we were playing badly!"
I understand.
«The numbers, now more than ever when we have so many of them, must be interpreted well».
Explain it to me with an example.
«Perhaps Albert Einstein had football in mind when he said: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
Ahahah. The times of football are changing a lot in Serie A, in these years.
"We're now calibrating ourselves for games that last at least 95 minutes. And last year, in one of the most important challenges, we played 103 minutes and 36 seconds. If you think about it, it's almost like a whole overtime. So, when I have to look at the data of a game, to understand, I simplify a lot."
How?
"In these 95 minutes, how many times have I entered the opponent's penalty area? With how many balls? I'm not interested in possession, especially if it's a sterile horizontal exchange. I'm interested in how many truly dangerous balls I produce."
And then?
"The fundamental data is how many players I brought into the area to close the action. Did one, two, four, six enter? How consistently? What is the total number of useful crosses?"
Do you have a separate archive of each exercise, for each player, of all the training sessions done over the years?
"Of course, let's start from this data. I can prepare a job for the kids, but if I don't know how much effort it costs the group, the individual, how can I plan the commitments and the loads of each one? Diversity is the salt of the teams."
She also says that one should never become a slave to patterns.
"Of course. We all start from the schemes, but in football it is not always possible to implement what you prepare."
So what is the scheme?
"A geometric relationship between players, which they must know how to recognize, destroy and rebuild, following their intuition. The development of the game always arises from contingent situations, and always produces unpredictable variables."
Everyone's talking about the rhombus, how does it work?
(Nicola sets out the diagram with what is on the table.) "Rhombuses, squares, but also triangles. Now I'll place these four glasses in front of your nose. Imagining that you have your goal behind you, and your opponent's goal in front - where I am - we have drawn the coordinates of the basic figure: the famous rhombus."
I see it.
"Every time a vertex - that is, a player - moves, attacks, advances leaving his position free, the other vertices must move in substitution to reconstruct the geometry of the rhombus. Do you see where the lowest glass goes to replace the full-back who has moved forward? It's a small-big principle on which all my teams move."
It requires much more effort than a more traditional, zonal positioning.
(Loud laughter.) "But tell me something beautiful that doesn't cost effort, if it exists, in football or in life."
We run like crazy to reconstruct the figure.
"Maybe. This idea of a geometry to be maintained in the field, without a doubt, requires a greater initial cognitive effort, but once you learn the principle, paradoxically, you move economically: you know what you and the others will do, you don't waste energy."
And then what happens?
«When the geometry automatism kicks in, you immediately recognize the situations that arise during the attack or defense phase».
Type?
«You always know how to move, especially when you don't have possession or if you lose the ball».
When she talks about football she always uses the plural.
"Because we are a working group, a team within a team. Half of the things I talk about, I wouldn't know how to do alone!"
And the work on the players?
"I am never a slave to schemes. If I have a player of a certain age who has two strong qualities, I have to exploit them to enhance them, without asking him to do things that - penalizing him - damage the team; if I tell him to make a move, but then I realize that he instinctively makes another but it is more effective, I am the one who models the formation on the field, exploiting his talent for the team!"
Is this innovative football?
"Well! In football there have been many fashions: phases in which if you proposed something "new" they called you "visionary", and if you proposed something "classic" they labeled you as "retrograde". I put on the field what I need to win, and I don't care about labels".
There are times when everything goes well and others when everything goes badly even if you try your best.
«Gasperini said it well when he won the Europa League: "I won, but it's not like I'm only capable now that I've won."
Right, but let's translate it.
"You win when you get where you wanted: if you reach safety, if you get what you had set as your objective. Otherwise, if you compare yourself with the first in the standings, you always lose. Everyone has their own times, their own means, their own abilities to get there, in a way that is never the same for everyone."
She wants her teams to learn not to be afraid of making mistakes.
"In Italy we have a phobia of making mistakes. But mistakes, or failures - at a certain level - are the demonstration of what you need to achieve. Making mistakes is the only way I know to learn to win."
Example.
«The match against Roma that you were telling me about: without risking losing it, it was impossible to win it».
Do you believe the suggestion that David can always beat Goliath?
«One day, on the eve of a match against Inter, Gigi Simoni arrives and very abruptly says to me: “Changing plans Davide: tomorrow you'll mark Adriano”».
And her?
"My world collapsed. I didn't feel ready, I was aware of being inferior. I became aware of this, but also of the fact that even the "emperor" could be stopped. We limited him, we hindered him, me and everyone else, on the defense line. Adriano scored, but only on a penalty. Goliath remains stronger, but David can always do it."
The young defender Nicola was sent off in a derby against Sampdoria and it was a disgrace. As a coach, does this make you more lenient or more severe with those who get sent off?
"It makes me understand better. That day, I grew up in that world and I felt the game too much. I learned to help others not to repeat my mistakes."
Tell me one thing you like about this job.
"Observing the players without being veiled by prejudice. From what their history apparently says."
Meaning what?
«I work on individuals, on their heads, on how they think».
And then?
«When I have a clear idea about someone, I go to him and say: «You've played 150 games in this role, in my opinion you can do something else, it will take time. It's not a given that you'll succeed, but it could be your future. Let's try?».
Hahaha. We are back in Rango territory. And does it work?
"Sometimes yes, and it is a huge satisfaction. We are not thinking machines that sometimes get emotional: we are emotional machines that sometimes think."
Example.
«The one with the cell phone on my table and the lion.»
Which lion?
"While we were talking, my phone vibrated. I looked at the screen, decided that our conversation was more important, and in fact I explained the diamonds to her."
Thank you.
"You're welcome. But if that door opens now and a lion comes in, I won't even look at it in the face, I'll throw myself out the window without thinking. My brain has already decided for me."
It is rare for a lion to approach Nicholas.
«But he doesn't know how many games are lost in Serie A, just because of the way in which the most irrational fear, sometimes, infects teams».
Months ago she said: “I’m not just looking for a new team, but a people to represent. A new battle”. And Nicola Riva wrote to her: “Here in Cagliari you have found both”.
"True. I'll start with the team: I found a wonderful, magical group, characterized by a very strong identity. They already know that many things will change, we are already doing it, but this spirit must be preserved."
And then?
"And then there's Sardinia. I discovered it as a child thanks to Abele Atzori, a dear friend my father used to visit in Piscinas, in Sulcis-Iglesiente. When he came back he would tell us about this wonderful land. Then Abele came to live in our town. When we saw the first snow in Vigone, thanks to their stories we had the sea, the sun, the myrtle bushes and the prickly pears in our eyes. I fell in love with this land even then. Abele has always had a relationship with him and with us that allowed him to tell us about Sardinia with enormous passion. Thanks to him I know that Cagliari is much more than a team, the identity of the people Riva spoke of."
Is Abel still alive?
"Of course! You'll find him in the stands, from the first match of the championship, taking notes."
Are you satisfied with the squad that emerges from this first phase of the market?
"I have a team that has understood a lot of what I have transmitted. I immediately felt dedication to work, a sense of belonging, identity: the most experienced demonstrate it to me without holding back. It is an added value."
There are many young people among the new signings.
"I already see significant potential. There is work to be done, but they have the numbers to reach the awareness of what they will have to be in Cagliari."
Have you already decided who to keep?
«Some will go to mature elsewhere, some have already gone, others will arrive because I, the director, and the company have clear ideas about what needs to be done and what we need».
In a beautiful interview with “Ultimo uomo” you once said: “Yes, I am competitive. If I could, I would devour everyone”.
(Opens his eyes wide, laughs.) "I still think that, even if it's not always possible with certain opponents. I still have the same ambition today as when I started on the bench: to always improve."
Can this team run for more than survival? Can it still be done with all the millionaire foreign investments in Serie A?
"I don't think a coach should talk about this. Or rather: I know that just remaining without suffering in the elite of the top twenty teams in football is a less obvious feat than in the past. However..." (pause)
What?
"Miracles don't exist. Everything is built with work and time. Atalanta has built its great cycle in eight years. I know well what our objective is today, but there are many conditions to imagine a cycle."
What does Davide Nicola do in his free time?
"A ton of things. None of which have anything to do with football."
Type?
"Not at all. I don't watch games. I like going to the theater, to the cinema, to find books to read on other subjects. I have a passion for historical furniture, I love art, I ride my bike, I hang out with people who do different jobs. As long as they don't have anything to do with football."
Why?
«I need to disconnect: from these worlds, I always get a lot of input, enrichment that I then need every day».
What's the weather like at home?
"Hot. My father is passionate about football, he follows every detail. My mother too. My children, now, as soon as I get home they question me. Not to mention my sisters! Federica follows because she loves me..."
And Denise?
(Laughter) "He's a kind of ultra. He's already studying the calendar, evaluating the most difficult days. Then he asks me trick questions."
And when is your wife passionate about football?
"Laura? Zero."
After so many years? I don't believe it.
"Laura and I met at school. She is calm, solid, the opposite of me who am volcanic and extroverted. She doesn't follow her husband's clubs at all, but she coaches her own team with a roster of six players which is our family. As a shareholder of this company I have to be very grateful to her because she has always achieved all the goals. However...".
But?
(Sigh.) "Sometimes she makes me angry, because maybe one day when you're risking your life, she doesn't even remember (or pretends) who you're fighting. Then I shout at her: 'But Laura! At least find out about the team we're playing against!'"
And her?
(Sigh.) “She doesn’t say anything to me. She looks at me, smiles at me the way she knows how. And I immediately forget all the anger I felt.”
(Unionline)
