It was the fifth time in Spalletti s career that he had to temporarily put out a fire in the middle of a season. The last time was in 2016 when he saved Roma s season.

October 30th Spalletti’s appointment as Juventus’ new coach is only awaiting official announcement. Statistics from Sky Sports Italia show that Juventus will become the fifth team in his career that he has taken over midway through the season.

In fact, his coaching career started when he took over midway (at Empoli). Since then, he has had similar experiences at Udinese, Ancona and Roma:

April 1994: With six rounds left in Serie C before the end of the season, he replaced the fired Adriano Lombardi to start his coaching career. The team ended up second to last but managed to avoid relegation through the relegation play-offs. The following year he transitioned to coaching the youth team.

March 2001: Replaced De Canio to take charge of Udinese. He scored 9 points in the last 11 rounds and finally ranked 12th in the league.

December 2001: Replaced Fabio Bruni as coach of Ancona in Serie B. The original goal was to avoid relegation, but he eventually led the team to an astonishing 8th place.

January 2016: Returned to Rome to replace the fired Rudy Garcia, completely turning the season around: 14 wins, 4 draws and 1 loss in the remaining 19 rounds, and finally won third place with an astonishing average of 2.42 points per game.