They may be a relatively new name in Italian football, but Sassuolo have certainly made a name for themselves since their arrival on the Serie A scene in 2013. Upon its acquisition by Giorgio Squinzi in 2002 – a man who made his fortune through building materials company Mapei – the club was revived from a history spent exclusively in the lower leagues.
The intelligent owner appointed a young Massimiliano Allegri in 2008, the boss taking the club into Serie B for the first time in its history during his one and only season in charge. From there, this ambitious project saw the Neroverdi become one of only two Italian clubs to own their own stadium, standing alongside Turin giants Juventus.
After coming close to the top flight in the preceding seasons, Sassuolo finally made it to Serie A for the first time ever with former Roma midfielder Eusebio Di Francesco in 2013. Not only did the tactician – who was a firm believer in his signature 4-3-3 formation – keep the minnows in the division, but incredibly took them to a sixth-placed finish in 2015-16, which would earn a Europa League berth.
Of course, this kind of success would always see bigger teams come knocking, and the Giallorossi replaced Luciano Spalletti with their former player in summer 2017. Sassuolo inevitably struggled following Di Francesco’s idyllic five-year spell in charge, replacing the inept Cristian Bucchi with experienced Beppe Iachini in November of the same year.
The latter boss kept them up, but ever-ambitious Sassuolo have opted to replace him with the younger Roberto De Zerbi for the coming campaign, and have been creating headlines with their transfer strategy too. Normally the recipient of talented youngsters from bigger clubs and also from their own youth sector, the Reggio Emilia outfit have changed tack with one high-profile acquisition this summer.
“Unione Sportiva Sassuolo Calcio announces the completion of the following transfer market operation,” read a club official statement. “Kevin-Prince Boateng has been signed outright from Eintracht Frankfurt.”
This would be the biggest-ever signing for Sassuolo, and perhaps the most random of the transfer window so far. Following a career that boasts time spent with Tottenham Hotspur, Borussia Dortmund, two separate spells with AC Milan and Schalke, it is somewhat odd that Boateng would come back to Italy in order to play for a team that played in front of an average of just 11,266 supporters last term.
“I’ve seen the great passion of the owner Squinzi, he loves football,” boss De Zerbi told a recent press conference. “He tries to find out about and understand the tactical strategies and the idea of the game. As for objectives, we’ll decipher those when the pitch tells us the value of our squad. Boateng? He’s a quality player, and quality players have to play. I know him well, he’s intelligent, mature and strong and he can play different roles.”
Well used to success in his other business ventures, Squinzi is not a man to be told that he can’t achieve something. He may have lost Di Francesco and many of his more successful players but the signing of a player with a proven pedigree in Kevin-Prince Boateng indicates that he is ready to keep pushing forward little fish Sassuolo in the large pond of Serie A.
