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Juve’s Allegri coy on Italy job

Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri distanced himself from taking up the vacant post as Italy coach on Saturday, but left the door open to eventually accepting the job.

Published: 18 November 2017 16:25 CET
Juve's Allegri coy on Italy job
Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri. Photo: Patricia De Melo Moreira/AFP

Italy are still reeling from their historic failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup finals after Sweden beat them in the play-offs on Monday.

Heartbroken Italians are looking for some immediate positive response, and Allegri, who won the Italian title in 2011 at AC Milan and the last three at Juventus, would fit the bill.

“Coaching the national team is one of my ambitions, but not right now,” the 50-year-old told a press conference ahead of Juventus's game at Sampdoria on Sunday.

“In a few years,” said the man who made his name as coach at Cagliari and who is known as tactically astute.

“I still have major objectives to attain with Juventus, building a team for the future.”

“As for the national team we can talk about that in a few years time, if indeed I ever get offered the job,” said Allegri, who took over Juventus in 2014.

Italy is still floundering in disbelief after 75,000 stunned fans in Milan's San Siro Stadium and 14.8 million horrified Italians watched their national fall from grace at the hands of Sweden on Monday.

Italy had only failed once before to make the cut, at the Sweden finals of 1958.

The Italian football federation called crisis talks on Wednesday and sacked the 69-year-old Gian Piero Ventura.

With his avuncular touch the former Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, AC Milan, Chelsea, PSG and Juventus coach Carlo Ancelotti is the favourite to take over and rebuild the Azzurri.

ACCIDENT

German tourists among 13 dead in Italy cable car accident

Thirteen people, including German tourists, have been killed after a cable car disconnected and fell near the summit of the Mottarone mountain near Lake Maggiore in northern Italy.

Published: 23 May 2021 14:15 CEST
Updated: 23 May 2021 16:46 CEST
German tourists among 13 dead in Italy cable car accident
The local emergency services published this photograph of the wreckage. Photo: Vigili del Fuoco

The accident was announced by Italy’s national fire and rescue service, Vigili del Fuoco, at 13.50 on Sunday, with the agency saying over Twitter that a helicopter from the nearby town of Varese was on the scene. 

Italy’s National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps confirmed that there were 13 victims and two seriously injured people.

Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported that German tourists were among the 13 victims.

According to their report, there were 15 passengers inside the car — which can hold 35 people — at the time a cable snapped, sending it tumbling into the forest below. Two seriously injured children, aged nine and five, were airlifted to hospital in Turin. 

The cable car takes tourists and locals from Stresa, a resort town on Lake Maggiore up to a panoramic peak on the Mottarone mountain, reaching some 1,500m above sea level. 

According to the newspaper, the car had been on its way from the lake to the mountain when the accident happened, with rescue operations complicated by the remote forest location where the car landed. 

The cable car had reopened on April 24th after the end of the second lockdown, and had undergone extensive renovations and refurbishments in 2016, which involved the cable undergoing magnetic particle inspection (MPI) to search for any defects. 

Prime Minister Mario Draghi said on Twitter that he expressed his “condolences to the families of the victims, with special thoughts for the seriously injured children and their families”.

Infrastructure Minister Enrico Giovannini told Italy’s Tg1 a commission of inquiry would be established, according to Corriere della Sera: “Our thoughts go out to those involved. The Ministry has initiated procedures to set up a commission and initiate checks on the controls carried out on the infrastructure.”

“Tomorrow morning I will be in Stresa on Lake Maggiore to meet the prefect and other authorities to decide what to do,” he said.

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