Roma Review of 2016 Part 13: Sabatini departs and Gandini arrives

Mauro Baldissoni, Roma General Manager: “The sporting director is one of the key roles at a football club. The coaches have a more delicate impact on the team and the performance - every single point you make or you don’t make on the pitch. The sporting director, of course, has a very critical role, but they have a different impact so you have to manage the departure or the change with more flexibility and time.

“Sabatini spent five years in Rome, so it was a long time and sometimes after a long time, the dynamics change. When you don’t have the same common view in terms of the decisions for the team, it’s time to depart. There’s nothing wrong or strange with that. It happens all the time. What is important for the club is to be able to maintain a certain consistency and stability in terms of processes and decisions. This is what we think we are doing.”

Wayne Girard, Roma fan: “I felt hopeful. I think I was a little nervous that someone else would be the Sporting Director, but I felt that it was the right decision to move on. There were things Walter did that were not justifiable to continue his contract, and honestly I don’t think he deserved another contract.

"I realise that he had financial constraints - this is not FIFA or Football Manager, this is not Chelsea, but I thought that with what he had, he could have done better. You could always do better, but there were some very questionable moves that didn’t coincide with what the coach needed. That was a theme and that theme didn’t go away unfortunately. I was relieved when he left and hopeful for what the next year or two years are going to bring.”

Mauro Baldissoni: “It’s impossible to only make right choices. Everybody makes mistakes. We bought a couple of players that were strongly wanted by some of our competitors, and we managed to be successful in getting the player and then the player didn’t perform in the end. That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t the right choice at that moment.

"It’s impossible to avoid that - it’s football. Even if you make some mistakes that you cannot avoid, you have to work with the aim of reducing the level of mistakes by having more elements to evaluate. Having more data and time along with proper planning to verify the choices helps reduce the risk of the player not performing well but it’s impossible to avoid the entire risk.

“It’s fair to say that Walter’s characteristics have always been the ability to identify young talents and preview their potential development. He did that in the past with other clubs before joining Roma. He proved to be able to do it in Rome as well, especially in the beginning. That was very important for our ability to increase our competitiveness while respecting the financial constraints, thanks to the capital gain that we could obtain with the sales of players that we bought at an early stage of their development. Going forward, we are trying to be more organised and structured.”

John Solano, Roma fan: “I was actually pleased that he was leaving. I think it got to the point where the relationship had soured. Both sides needed to go their separate ways. He had many hits and many misses. Obviously, he was known as the guy who could buy low and sell high, which helped the club financially. He’s got a fantastic eye for talent, but as far as building a cohesive, complete side, I think that’s where he lacks.

"We’re seeing Roma pay the price for that now, as they have little depth at this point. Obviously we could go move-by-move and agree or disagree with what he did, but when resources are tighter, like they are at Roma, where you can’t just spend freely like you can at City, PSG or even Juve to an extent, you have to be very smart and conservative with some of the moves you make.

“I think that this past summer, he really dropped the ball. He missed a big chance to make the club deeper and stronger at the bottom of the roster. Unfortunately, it’s almost January, and a lot of the players are run down. They’ve played a lot of minutes and there’s not many viable substitutes, particularly in the midfield, so I think it was the right time for him to move on.”

David Rossi, Roma Radio: “I've never seen anyone quite so at one with football as Walter Sabatini. He felt he'd come to the end of a journey and that can happen in this sport.”

Umberto Gandini, Roma CEO: “I never honestly thought about going to another Italian club. I always felt that mobility within the same country is something for technical people or players. For managers, it’s very difficult - especially if you have such a long career with one club.

“Obviously, the opportunity to join a very important club like AS Roma, with long tradition in a beautiful city and with very fascinating ownership and a vision towards the future, was very, very appealing. The role which has been offered to me was sort of a prize after 23 years at AC Milan. I was very proud of that, but on the other hand it was also the end of an era in AC Milan when Mr Berlusconi officially decided to sell the club. The preliminary contract had been signed and the Chinese ownership was going to get into the club. That was sort of a message: ‘Your era here is over, it’s done.’

“What we did at AC Milan is now history and that’s the past. Now, the only thing that counts for me is the present and future, and AS Roma is my present and hopefully my future.”