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It’s not often that the fathers of football managers speak to the media, but Amerigo Sarri has made an exception.

Sarri senior has this week been in Calenzano, near Florence, to watch the Giglio d’Oro cycling awards. Gazzetta dello Sport, who follow cycling closely, had someone there and managed to get a chat with the Chelsea manager’s dad.

Firstly, Sarri Sr explained that he believes his son would have stayed as manager of Napoli if it hadn’t been for a fall out at the club: “Maurizio left his heart in Naples and, in my opinion, he would have liked to stay there, maybe something happened with president Aurelio De Laurentiis, but in England now he’s fine.”

De Laurentiis certainly did have a breakdown in relationship with his manager, which helped lead to the bizarre situation of Chelsea not being able to appoint Sarri until mid July despite everyone knowing it was almost certainly going to happen.

Things are now much better for Sarri at Stamford Bridge, and his father said “I went to see him in London a fortnight ago and for the first time I saw his match, he is very well at Chelsea and is very popular. He was immediately at ease because he already knew the English language he learned when he worked in the bank for four months, right in London.”

Whilst Amerigo Sarri is content with his son’s current situation, he does have an idea of where he should manage in the future: “As a child in school he was a fan of Napoli because he was born there, but then over time Fiorentina has entered his heart. I personally would like to see him in purple and I do not know if in the past there were contacts because generally in those few moments in which we are together, we almost never talk about football.”