The coach called to save the Campania club in Serie C: “I’ll be like a surgeon. I want to get a team back on its feet that was struggling to get going before me. But there’s a circus for entertainment”
Eziolino Capuano is back. He has a blue hat and his usual mirrored sunglasses. He walks hastily around the pitch while directing his Giugliano’s training: he observes, encourages the players, corrects every detail. “Football is enthusiasm. After 38 years on the bench I wanted to stop. I lived ten months of suffering due to the traumatic separation with Trapani. The family convinced me to start again. Today I am reborn. I wake up every morning to go to the stadium and make the city happy.” The Campania club has chosen to focus on the coach from Salerno: it is the third change of the season at the helm of the group. Now the Gialloblù are stuck at 12 points in the playout zone in Group C of Serie C: “I will be like a surgeon. I want to get a team back on its feet that was struggling to walk before me. I will wear the lab coat, but I will always remain a coach of the people.”
The stop against Monopoli, then the two successes against Benevento in the Italian Cup and Siracusa. The Capuano cure seems to work.
“I found a group of men, rather than players. At Giugliano there is a compact, united locker room. In my career I have often arrived in teams that were experiencing difficult situations. I immediately told the boys that ‘winning is everyone’s desire, knowing how to prepare for victory is instead the privilege of a few'”.
Where does your Giugliano start from?
“From the vertical and aggressive game. We have to run, get to the ball first, fight. Football is a simple sport: the team must know how to propose and maintain positions. For entertainment there is the cinema or the circus.”
This time too, in his 3-5-2 there will be no room for building from the bottom.
“I call it destruction from below. The club is a company and like every company it wants results. It’s the same for the fans too, the people only think about victory. I talked about the 3-5-2 in my thesis in Coverciano 16 years ago, when few colleagues in Italy used it.”
In that period he closely observed Mourinho and his Treble-winning Inter.
“We were schoolchildren, there was a misunderstanding with the team manager and he intervened to defend us. I also admire the pragmatism of Conte and Allegri. I’m not a gamer. The coach is like a painter.”
“He must have ideas. Let’s think of Van Gogh, a genius. How many replicas of his paintings are there around? A lot. But they don’t belong to the original, therefore they are not art. In football you need imagination, in Serie A as in the First Category. And for a while I lost it.”
The farewell to Trapani had a profound impact on her.
“How can they sleep and caress their loved ones thinking about what they did to me. Agreeing to work with that management was the most serious mistake of my life. I paid dearly for it. With a shameful letter they accused me of falsehood. I took the matter to court and the judge agreed with me. I wouldn’t wish the ten months of pain I went through on anyone. I’ll venture the comparison, I probably would have preferred to stay in a hospital.”
However, he found the strength to react.
“Thanks to the love of the family and the extraordinary work of the lawyers. I couldn’t give it away to a group of people who have been playing football for three days. Giugliano is the right opportunity to start again.”
He spent 38 years on the bench, all between amateurs and Serie C. He coached everywhere: from Modena to Messina. The greatest feat?
“My last year at Taranto, the city is in my heart. In 2024, without the penalty points, we would have achieved promotion to Serie B.”
Do you use technology at work?
“Absolutely not. Do you think I don’t even use social media.” Yet videos of his cult phrases are everywhere.
“My wife and son often tell me, I don’t have these distractions.”
For Capuano, is there only football?
“I live for football and I always speak from the heart. I have never bluffed in life. I have principles and I say what I think, unlike many others. For me, players are like children. They should be kissed when they sleep, never during the day.”
What is his goal?
“To work and stay in this world until I have the strength.”
In his career he has never gone beyond Serie C. Has the time come?
“I remain focused on the present. Coaching Giugliano is worth more than leading a team in the Champions League.”
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