Empoli securing Serie A safety deep into stoppages was just the latest miracle in the career of coach Davide Nicola, who has learned to annihilate the idea of an impossible situation.
The Tuscans knew they needed a victory against Roma to secure their safety and Houssem Aouar cancelled out the Matteo Cancellieri opener.
At the 93rd minute, Cancellieri rolled across for substitute M’Baye Niang to drill home the winner at 2-1, sending Frosinone to Serie B instead.
Empoli looked doomed in penultimate place when Nicola took the job on January 15, but he has overseen six wins, five draws and seven defeats to drag them out of the drop zone.
Nicola, the comeback king
It was only the latest in a series of incredible comebacks, as Nicola started his reputation by taking over a Crotone side with just nine points in 2017 and picking up 21 points in the last 15 games to secure safety.
Funnily enough, the team he sent down instead that year was Empoli.
Nicola kept his pledge and took a bicycle ride with his staff all the way from Crotone to his home town of Turin, covering 1,300km in nine days.
He performed another comeback at Genoa in December 2019, taking them from last place with 11 points in 17 rounds to safety with 28 points in the last 21 games.
The most dramatic and seemingly impossible achievement was at Salernitana in 2021-22.
Nicola was their third coach of the campaign, he arrived in February 2022 with them rock bottom on 13 points from 23 rounds, making up an eight-point gap from the safety zone to secure their status.
This evening, he posted a message on his social media account.
It had ‘I promise you’ wiped out and replaced by: ‘I will show you.’
— Davide Nicola (@DavideNicolaOff) May 26, 2024
Milan should hire him, very sure Ibra would approve.
What an escape artist.