According to La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) this morning, Tony D’Amico is destined to stay at Atalanta because he Percassi family do not want to lose him. Thus, the main candidates for the role of sporting director now has one less name.
Tare is the only one without a contract. Translated, he is the only one who could immediately get to work to build next year’s team, starting naturally with the choice of coach. The Albanian was at Lazio for 15 seasons and won six trophies.
He is very good at fishing for talents by paying little for them and then reselling them for high figures. His main coup was Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, bought from Gent for €10m and resold to Al Hilal for €40m. The Serbian midfielder amassed 341 appearances and 69 goals for the Biancoceleste.
The current team still has some of his signings like Zaccagni, Gila and Lazzari, but the jewels in the crown are Ciro Immobile, who became Lazio’s highest ever scorer (207 goals), and Luis Alberto who became known as ‘the wizard’.
There were big capital gains registered from sales like Biglia, Candreva, Felipe Anderson, Hoedt and Correa. Tare has a network of trusted collaborators with whom he sifts all the European leagues. In the dressing room when needed he knows how to make his voice heard.
Among the coaches he highly rates are Max Allegri and Antonio Conte, two of the winners that the Rossoneri have been following for some time. Only Allegri is free for the moment, however, while Conte is under contract with Napoli, and as we revealed Maurizio Sarri is an option too.
Compared to Tare and Sartori, Manna has less experience in Serie A, but in his short career he has shown that he has a clinical eye for identifying talent. He started at Lugano, but the decisive leap for his career was at Juventus where he worked for the youth sector and then for the Under 23.
There, he managed and developed the likes of Yildiz, De Winter, Soulé, Miretti, Barrenechea, Nicolussi Caviglia and Iling-Junior. Promotion to the first team was inevitable, then Aurelio De Laurentiis chose him to launch a new cycle after the Scudetto and the following very complicated season.
Manna responded by closing the deal with Manchester United for McTominay and buying Neres from Benfica. Both are making an important contribution to Conte’s team. He has a great bond with the coach, and they could reunite in red and black.
Sartori is perhaps the hardest to get to given he recently signed a renewal until 2027, a logical consequence of the results that Bologna achieved last season and are achieving this season.
His main intuition was Riccardo Calafiori, bought from Basel and resold to Arsenal after just one year with a significant capital gain. Zirkzee exploded and then went to Manchester United. In the current team, the big signings are Castro, Odgaard, Ferguson, Beukema, Ndoye and Miranda.
Even in his years at Atalanta, there were big sales like Kessie (to Milan), Kulusevski (to Juventus), Gosens (to Inter), Mancini (to Roma), Barrow (to Bologna) and Castagne (to Leicester).
At Chievo instead he revalued Corini, Corradi, Perrotta and Marchegiani as well as launching Amauri, Barzagli and Legrottaglie. Sartori highly respects Vincenzo Italiano, who he brought to Bologna to replace Thiago Motta. If Sartori signs for the Diavolo, will Italiano follow him?
