Inter Milan named Romanian Mircea Lucescu as their new team coach yesterday after sacking Gigi Simoni. Simoni guided Inter to the 1998 UEFA Cup but failed to produce a convincing system of play this season, not helped by the injuries to Ronaldo and Roberto Baggio, and was sacked on Monday evening.
Lucescu, who has worked in Italy before, started his coaching career in 1978-79 with second division Romanian team Corinvul, winning promotion with them the following season. He was later the Romanian national coach before taking charge of Dynamo Bucharest from 1986-90.
He arrived in Italy in 199091 but was sacked from Serie A club Pisa before the season was out. He spent the next five seasons with Brescia, hovering between promotion and relegation in the Serie A and Serie B.
He then joined Reggiana, but was kicked out after 10 matches. A mooted return to Brescia last season never came to anything.
Meanwhile, Simoni slammed the Serie A club's executives yesterday for giving him the sack.
"I consider this dismissal an unfair decision," he said. "I consider this situation to be against nature."
Simoni said he couldn't understand how a coach be sacked after two consecutive wins, after they were getting back on track in the European Champions League by beating the new world champions Real Madrid after the team had been showing clear signs of recovery.
He also railed against his treatment in the sports press, claiming that his relations with club president Massimo Moratti had always been very good - despite frequent reports to the opposite.
"You have written 1,000 times that there had been arguments between me and the president, but I've never had anything like that," Simoni said. "If anything, I've always had an excellent rapport with him."
But the 59-year-old acknowledged: "Perhaps if I had been told what wasn't going right, I could have changed something."
Simoni said he had no plans to end his coaching career and despite everything retained a great affection for the Inter players and also the San Siro fans.
"They never whistled me once," he said.
Juninho yesterday denied he was seeking a move back to England, despite his anger at being left on the bench for Atletico Madrid's win at Barcelona last Saturday.
"I know nothing about the alleged interest of certain English teams," said the former Middlesborough favourite.
"I expect to stay at Atletico and work at keeping my place - even if I have a great love for Middlesborough, who treated me very well." Chelsea are also monitoring his situation.
