They were young, up-and-coming coaches at the time. The stakes were high, the prize promotion to the second tier of Italian football.
Foggia were hosting Pisa in the Serie C play-off final, second leg, and by the end of it neither Gennaro Gattuso, a World Cup winner with a storied past as a player, nor Roberto de Zerbi, more modestly talented as a footballer but gifted in management, were on the touchline.
Both had been sent off. They had scuffled. Gattuso, then 38, had also taken a blow to the head, though not from his near-contemporary De Zerbi - only the foolhardy would ever aim a punch at the tough-as-teak Gattuso - but from an object thrown from the grandstand.
The frustration of Foggia fans had spilled over. Their team were trailing by two goals from the first leg and although they would reduce the deficit at the tail-end of the home game, Pisa equalised in stoppage time to secure promotion - an achievement, a place in Serie B, that a jubilant Gattuso likened to the Champions League triumphs he had enjoyed as a player with AC Milan.
The pugnacious, animated young managers later shook hands and patched up differences, a mature stance and also a wise rapprochement given that they were always sure to meet again. Even back in 2016, at that play-off, it was easy to forecast that Gattuso, one of the great motivators of a team and of a crowd, would be involved in elite management well into the future. So would De Zerbi, a coach of progressive, innovative ideas and a charisma appreciated by footballers taking instruction from him.
Less predictable, even two weeks ago, was that the 11th managerial meeting of Gattuso and De Zerbi would be illuminating a touchline in the Europa League in a meeting between the great sleeping giant of France’s south coast, Olympique Marseille and the upstart disruptors from the English seaside, Brighton and Hove Albion.
For the intrepid De Zerbi, it is a glamour fixture that rewards his dazzling impact on English football. He joined Brighton 13 months ago, and less than a year after arriving in the league of Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp, propelled Brighton into European competition for the first time in their history.
Gattuso, meanwhile, is freshly installed as the latest firefighter to take on volatile Marseille. Thursday night will be his home debut as OM’s fourth different head coach of the last 14 months.
His immediate rapport with Marseille’s supporters demands close attention. His predecessor in the job, the Spaniard Marcelino, who was appointed in the summer and had overseen an unbeaten five-match start to the Ligue 1 season, resigned after a tense meeting between the club’s president Pablo Longoria and supporters groups, in which threats were reportedly made against club executives and coaching staff.
When Longoria announced Gattuso as the new head coach, he acknowledged the pressures at OM: “Gennaro is the right man for the job. He has taken over, mid-season, at clubs in Italy and always made things better.”
Witness AC Milan, where Gattuso was a crowd favourite as a combative midfielder and, as coach, was called in after a poor run of form in the autumn of 2017. He guided the club to fifth place by the end of the following season, a significant improvement on where he had found Milan.
Witness Napoli, ninth in Serie A when he was invited to make the atmospheric Diego Armando Maradona stadium his ally. They finished fifth at the end of his full season in Naples.
Add last season’s six months at Valencia, and you recognise Gattuso’s appetite for the noisy, fervent audience. And he recognises that can be a double-edged sword. “Fans help you but it gets difficult if you start matches badly,” he said ahead of Brighton’s visit. “The atmosphere turns negative and the jersey starts to weigh heavily on players. It’s up to us to keep the supporters onside.”
Gattuso laughed at the recall of his first encounter, as a manager, with De Zerbi, whom he previously knew of as an aspiring midfielder at Milan, though De Zerbi only ever made the substitutes’ bench there and played most of his football in Italy’s lower divisions.
“We had a little clash in that promotion play-off but that’s just football. We’ve both got strong personalities. I’ve got huge respect for Roberto,” added Gattuso. “I think he’s one of the best Italian coaches there is at the moment. He knows what he wants and he knew it just as clearly when he was coaching in the third division as he does managing in the top tier.
“We will be playing against one of the very top teams in Europe in terms of how they keep possession. We have to stay focused. We can’t lower our intensity.”
