Gennaro Gattuso returns to coaching with Lazio after Italy debacle

Gennaro Gattuso will make his return to coaching with Lazio after being hired by the ailing Serie A club on Tuesday, nearly three months after his short tenure as Italy coach ended in World Cup qualification failure.

“S.S. Lazio S.p.A. announces that it has appointed Mr. Gennaro Gattuso as Head Coach of the First Team,” Lazio said in a statement.

Italian media report that Gattuso has signed a two-year deal with Lazio, with an annual net salary of 1.5 million euros ($1.7 million).

Gattuso returns to club coaching in Serie A, where he was one of the faces of a star-studded AC Milan team which over his 13 years at the San Siro won two Serie A titles and the Champions League in 2003 and 2007.

He replaces Maurizio Sarri, who terminated his contract with Lazio late last month after a disastrous season in which the Rome-based club finished ninth in Serie A and lost in the Italian Cup final to Inter Milan.

The 48-year-old has a tough job on his hands as he has been hired by a team whose fans spent most of last season boycotting matches in protest at the tenureship of long-term owner Claudio Lotito.

Gattuso’s coaching career has not reached the heights of his playing days, with one Italian Cup won with Napoli in 2020 his only silverware.

He replaced Luciano Spalletti as the national team coach in June last year and won six of his seven matches — although his last game was a painful penalty shoot-out defeat to Bosnia-Herzegovina in the World Cup qualifying play-offs.

That loss, which came after a 1-1 draw in Zenica, left Italy out of the World Cup for a third consectuive time, and spectators for this year’s tournament which is underway in the United States, Canada and Mexico.