Diego Maradona felt sceptical. He was not alone for wondering if Napoli, where he enjoyed the most heady successes and, indeed, excesses of his club career, had undersold themselves in the appointment of their new head coach.
Maurizio Sarri? Who is he? Was a 55-year-old who had spent the bulk of his football career in the lower divisions really the man to take Napoli forward?
Half a season on, and Maradona is enthusiastically celebrating Napoli's best start to a campaign since he was spearheading their last triumph in a Serie A title race, 26 years ago.
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He issued his mea culpas for saying Sarri lacked the calibre to guide the squad back in November, and last weekend, as Napoli became winter champions – leaders at halfway through the league schedule – with an emphatic 5-1 win over Frosinone, the outspoken Argentine sent his personal congratulations to the team, to the president and the coach.
It is hard not to feel, right now, for Sarri’s predecessor, Rafa Benitez.
He left Napoli after two years, and a third place and then a fourth spot in the Italian top flight, to fulfil a lifetime ambition, and work at a club with what seemed far greater resources and title-winning potential, Real Madrid.
That adventure ended after less than half a season. Benitez will know that he is not very much missed at the moment at Madrid, or at Napoli.
Sarri is very different, on the face of it, from the Spaniard, although he does share with Benitez a biography than includes no particular distinction as a player.
That may have made Maradona sceptical, but in an Italy where the likes of Arrigo Sacchi and Jose Mourinho, neither of whom played at elite level, have won league titles and Europeans Cups with Serie A clubs, it matters only a little.
What Sarri did not have was much of a top-level management profile, either until 18 months ago. He entered coaching full-time relatively late in his life, having pursued a career in banking, where he did well enough to take postings abroad.
But in those years, he preferred being at home in Italy because it meant he could commit his evenings to coaching local clubs.
In his early 40s, his Sansovino team climbed through the ranks, with two promotions in three years, to reach the professional divisions, and Serie C2. He figured, as he told la Repubblica, he had a talent he could "take further if I devoted myself to it full-time".
He gave up the banking and its comfortable salary and job security, for a life on the touchline and practice pitch.
At Sangiovannese, he won another promotion, to Serie C1, then an offer from Pescara took him into Serie B, where over the next nine years he coached various clubs, and developed a reputation for analytical detail, and the sort of rigour some might no longer, in these turbulent financial times, associate with certain members of the modern investment banking fraternity.
Perhaps he was never a typical banker. To look at Sarri is to see scant trace of a suit-and-tie type. He wastes little time trying to look smart or clean-shaven, and he smokes.
Napoli took a risk on him because of what he had achieved with Empoli, promoted to Serie A in 2014 and often a stylish credit to the division last season.
He started on a salary estimated at less than a third Benitez had earned, but he has so far eclipsed his predecessor, organising a stronger defensive unit and finding potency in attack.
Striker Gonzalo Higuain is at the peak of his powers, with 18 goals already in Serie A.
After his latest, against Frosinone, Higuain, leading scorer in the division after putting Napoli top by two points from Juventus, made a point of thanking Sarri for his counsel and tactical advice.
Players talk of his shrewd management. Sarri says: “I have learned you have to look after the kid who is in every footballer.”
Napoli will look to extend their two-point lead at the top of the table on Saturday night when they play host to Sassuolo.
Player to watch: James Rodriguez
His first season at Real Madrid after joining from Monaco in 2004 for €80 million (Dh320.4m) presented James with challenges. The established front three in the team are the celebrated trio of Karim Benzema, Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo, the so-called 'BBC', with Bale occupying the positions best suited to a left-footer, ahead of the left-footed James. Under Carlo Ancelotti, the coach until last May, a system developed where James operated in midfield, asked to combine his talents as a passer and creator with defensive duties.
Ancelotti gave way to Rafa Benitez, and, apart from one or two cameos, including his two brilliant goals in the 5-0 thrashing of Real Betis in August, James’ form has dipped in comparison with 2014/15. The relationship between James and Benitez became strained, with fitness issues hanging over from pre-season, which he started late because of his involvement in the Copa America. James reacted with indignation when Benitez suggested he was struggling to play for 90 minutes.
James was widely reported to have been among the happiest players in the Madrid dressing-room when Benitez was fired on the first weekend of the New Year, after a 2-2 draw with Valencia in which James, who has started just seven Primera Liga matches this season, was left on the bench and not used as a substitute.
But for Zinedine Zidane’s debut match on the bench, he seated James alongside him, preferring Isco, the nimble Spaniard as his most advanced midfielder in the XI, behind the ‘BBC’ strikeforce. James has been advised he must prove himself to the new coach. The question of whether he or Isco is named in the line-up for Sunday’s meeting with Sporting Gijon will be anticipated with interest.
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