Ahead of Juventus–Inter this weekend, Antonio Floro Flores has opened on his experience after working with both Maurizio Sarri and Antonio Conte at Arezzo.
The all-important Derby d’Italia creates a lot of expectations in Italy and as the game will go behind closed doors, Floro Flores has opened his to talk about his past with the two respective coaches.
Former Napoli, Udinese, Genoa, Sassuolo and Chievo forward Floro Flores looks back on the experiences from the season when Antonio Conte and Maurizio Sarri interchanged roles in the Arezzo dressing room.
Ahead of Juventus-Inter this weekend, Antonio Floro Flores has opened on his experience after working with both Maurizio Sarri and Antonio Conte at Arezzo.
The all-important Derby d’Italia creates a lot of expectations in Italy and as the game will go behind closed doors, Floro Flores has opened his to talk about his past with the two respective coaches.
Former Napoli, Udinese, Genoa, Sassuolo and Chievo forward Floro Flores looks back on the experiences from the season when Antonio Conte and Maurizio Sarri interchanged roles in the Arezzo dressing room.
Conte started the season at the helm, but was replaced by Sarri, only to return in charge of the club when the former Napoli coach didn’t manage to turn the tide.
“If Conte had not been sacked so early, perhaps it could have ended differently,” Floro Flores told Gianluca Di Marzio. “He needed time; it was his first experience as a coach.
“We had been struggling in the first part of the season but when Antonio was brought in to replace Sarri, he managed to have an incredible impact on the group.
“Even if it wasn’t enough to keep the team in Serie B. Maybe if he had more time…”
Sarri then arrived at the Stadio Citta di Arezzo in October 2006, to take over after Conte, and the striker remembers his “superstitious” personality quite well.
“Sarri was very attached to some rituals, he had a series of habits that he didn’t want to abandon and repeated every weekend,” Floro Flores told Gianluca Di Marzio. “He was incredibly superstitious.
“For example, he had a fixation about football boots. He wanted that we all dyed them black before entering the pitch.
“I never understood. Once I tried to explain that Adidas paid me to wear them in the League, but he didn’t want to change his mind.
“I told him: ‘Then I have to talk to the President’. He replied: ‘No, you do what I tell you’.
“But deep down, he was very pleasant. Despite being a very serious person, you could talk to him about anything.”
But Conte returned to Arezzo for the last 15 games of the season and couldn’t help save the team from relegation.
Floro Flores has revealed that he was “proud” to have created a “special bond” with the Inter coach during an intensive “vent” in private.
“He returned in Sarri’s place and had become a pneumatic hammer,” he said. “One day he vented with me, in private, in the dressing room. He said that if I didn’t train as he said, I should stay at home. ‘Now, I’m in charge’.
“I asked: ‘Why, who was in charge before?’ He explained to me that from that day on, there would be some rules to respect and that he would make no exceptions. After that face-to-face, a very intense bond was created. I am proud of that.”