Juventus centre-back Giorgio Chiellini has said that he only speaks to head coach Maurizio Sarri before he takes a shower after matches and training, revealing that the former Chelsea boss' office smells so badly of cigarettes that the stench stays with you long after leaving.
Sarri, who has been at the Allianz Stadium since departing Stamford Bridge last summer, is well known for his smoking habit, famously having to chew on butts on the sidelines in lieu of the real thing due to it being illegal to light up in British stadia.
Indeed, even after having suffered from a bout of pneumonia shortly after his arrival in Turin, the 61-year-old continues to puff.
“He's got a very closed-off personality,” Chiellini said of his chain-smoking boss in his new autobiography 'I, Giorgio'. “He doesn't let much slip – even if Juventus managed to whittle down some of his sharper edges.
“The one thing nobody has been able to change, however, is his outlandish attachment to cigarettes. You can only go and talk to him in his office before taking a shower, still wearing your playing kit, because otherwise you'd stink of smoke!”
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The Italian trainer's famous 'Sarriball' style of football is yet to be fully realised at his latest club, with the Old Lady lacking a Jorginho-style player to keep the tactical plan ticking over. However Chiellini believes that the boss' specific demands of his teams are what makes him a special coach.
“He's always looking for perfection – for example, 100 per cent possession in the opposition half. That's utopian, of course, but perhaps it's that pursuit is what allowed him to work his way up from the bottom to where he is now.”
Sarri isn't the only colleague Chiellini has shared his thoughts on lately, with his new book having caused quite a stir.
The defender has since publicly made up with Mario Balotelli after claiming that the striker was "a negative person with no respect" during their time playing together for the Italian national team, while former team-mate Felipe Melo responded angrily to Chiellini's suggestion that the Brazilian midfielder was “the worst of the worst”.
