Former Watford manager Walter Mazzarri expressed an interest in replacing Carlo Ancelotti at Everton before the Premier League outfit turned their attention to Rafa Benitez, as reported by The Athletic.
It will take an Evertonion equivalent of the ‘Miracle of Istanbul’ before some at Goodison Park are willing to accept the new Blues boss as one of their own.
To say Benitez is not a universally popular appointment would be the understatement of the century, the Spaniard’s Anfield past and those ill-advised ‘small club’ claims coming back to haunt him as he prepares to get his feet under the table on the other half of Merseyside.
Benitez’s appointment certainly came as a surprise – and not just because of his well-documented admiration for the club sitting on the other side of Stanley Park.
At 61, he hasn’t won a major trophy since the 2014 Coppa Italia at Napoli and was most recently seen in China – a so-called ‘retirement league’ that usually signals the end of your elite-level career.
It is not as if Everton didn’t have a range of other options available to them either.
Why did Walter Mazzarri not get the Everton job?
Graham Potter, Nuno Espirito Santo, Paulo Fonseca and even Roberto Martinez (the now-Belgium manager sacked by Farhad Moshiri back in 2016) were all tipped to replace Ancelotti following his sudden return to Real Madrid a month ago.
According to The Athletic, 59-year-old Mazzarri expressed his interest in the role too.
A coach who made his name at Napoli, leading a side containing the talents of Marek Hamsik, Edinson Cavani and Ezequiel Lavezzi to third in Serie A a decade ago, Mazzarri has found himself out in the cold since his departure from Torino in early 2020, banging at the door and desperate to force his way back in.
But it seems that Mazzarri, who endured an underwhelming spell at Watford in 2016/17 and recently threw his hat into the ring for the Celtic job, was never a serious candidate for a club who have instead thrown their weight behind another Napoli boss whose best years may lie, gathering dust, in the distant past.
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