Real Sociedad decided to pull the trigger on Sergio Francisco on Sunday morning, following a damning defeat to Girona on Friday night. The club had appointed the former B-team coach to ease the transition out of the Imanol Alguacil era, but this was the second time that the team’s form had caused significant doubts.
Francisco said after the match against Girona that he still felt he had the motivation to turn things around, and while defender Igor Zubeldia said it was the players not the manager who had to perform, that his side had made fools of themselves against Girona. La Real lie just a point above the drop, and have the fourth-worst defence in La Liga.
Real Sociedad set to appoint Pellegrino Matarazzo
According to RadioMarca, Real Sociedad have decided to appoint Pellegrino Matarazzo as their replacement for Francisco. There had been early talk that ex-Juventus coach Thiago Motta had reached an agreement. While he was an option that La Real liked, alongside Francisco Garcia Pimienta and Luis Garcia Plaza, Real Sociedad have reached an agreement on terms with Matarazzo.
Matarazzo: A disciple of Julian Nagelsmann
A former player from the United States of Italian and American descent, the 48-year-old spent his entire playing career in Germany. That is where he has developed as a coach too, originally beginning with Nurnberg’s B team. Moving to Hoffenheim in 2017, he would thn spend three seasons as an assistant manager to first Julian Nagelsmann and then Aflred Schreuder.
Matarazzo is most closely associated with Nagelsmann in terms of his style, aggressive in the press and flexible in terms of how to achieve it. Serving as Stuttgart manager from 2019 to 2022, he most recently spent just over a year and a half with Hoffenheim. With Stuttgart he took them from the 2. Bundesliga to stability in the top division, and then took over a midtable Hoffenheim side, before qualifying them for Europe in his second season, finishing seventh.
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