Head coach assistant Enrico Venturelli has been on some journey to the Amex.
Working closely with Roberto De Zerbi since their time together at Shakhtar Donetsk, Enrico's career certainly makes for interesting reading.
Have you always been interested in football, Enrico?
I’ve always had a passion for the game. I’m from Turin and first went to watch Juventus play when I was five – back when Michel Platini played for the club. From that moment on, I lived and breathed the game and from 1992 my dad purchased season tickets and I was fortunate to see the likes of Zidane, Del Piero… so many great players. Personally, I was never good enough to pursue a professional career, but I played at an amateur level and always enjoyed being part of the locker room.
Would it be fair to say that football is a religion in Italy?
We live football 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Maybe where I come from it isn’t as intense as, say, Naples or Rome, but we’re Italian, we love to talk football every day. We play on a Sunday; so, it’s church in the morning, lunch, then to the stadium – the social aspect is very important. Your mood for the start of the week is very much dependent on what happens during the 90 minutes.
Where did your journey begin?
I studied economics and marketing at university but realised it wasn’t what I wanted to do in life. In my city, there was a company which had a contract with both UEFA and FIFA, running an on-site operation for statistics, graphics and other services. I had a successful interview and began travelling the world, watching games from the media tribune at each stadium, gathering data and stats. I covered every major tournament, including the World Cup, Champions League, UEFA Cup and a number of youth and women’s competitions. I worked there from 2007 to 2012 and was living the dream!
Where did your love of languages first come from?
In 2008, before the new Champions League season, I had a conversation with my line manager who told me he would like someone for the Eastern European venues; not just to gather data, but to step up and take more responsibility. The company had a lack of Russian speakers, so I decided to go to Moscow and spent two-and-a-half months learning the language, five hours a day, six days a week. It gave me a good basic understanding of the language and I started travelling around the Baltic nations, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan – all the former Soviet states who could still speak Russian. I could already speak English, and later learnt Spanish and some Portuguese too.
What was your next career move?
I was contacted by the Russian Olympic Committee to work at the 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi. I was a project manager, and while my work was more related to media broadcast operations, I still kept an eye on data and statistics. I moved abroad permanently for the first time and it gave me the chance to sample a new culture and visit different Russian cities as a result. Once that contract came to an end, I moved to Azerbaijan, working on the first edition of the European Games, run by the Azeri Olympic Committee, and from there I worked at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio – again in a media broadcast capacity. It was very hectic, working in the International Broadcast Centre, but very rewarding.
Given your journey to this point, did you then spend six months chilling on Copacabana Beach?
That would have been nice! I did want to stay for a couple of months, visiting the Amazonian rainforest and various cities, but I then received a call to work on the Indoor Asian Games in Turkmenistan! It was a strict country, in terms of its laws and traditions, but another life experience to cherish. I then spent a year in Madrid, working for the Olympic Broadcasting Services, and then received an offer from Expo 2020 in Dubai. I was looking forward to working on a project outside of sport for the first time, but then Covid hit just as I was settling in, and everything changed.
So did you decide to go back home?
The pandemic gave me a chance to re-evaluate my life. I had led this nomadic existence but had seen very little of my family and friends. I had missed nine of my friends’ ten weddings and, of course, my parents were not getting any younger. The pandemic was scary – and it initially hit Italy very hard in the north of the country – so I wanted to be back home and closer to those I love. It was a terrible time for everyone across the world, but it at least gave me that chance to reconnect to those closest to me.
Once things eased, you were off again – to Shakhtar Donetsk…
I’d had a close association with the club since 2008 when I covered games there. I’d kept in contact with their staff through emails and text messages, and my girlfriend comes from the city. She had to move to Kyiv after the initial conflict with Russia began in 2014, and I also moved there to be with her once the covid restrictions eased. So, there I was in Kyiv when I received a call out of the blue from Shakhtar to say they were appointing an Italian coach and there was a potential role for me as a translator if I fancied it. That coach was, of course, Roberto De Zerbi, someone I knew and respected, both as a player and a coach. He had done a great job at Sassuolo, so I knew the club was making a very good appointment.
What happened next?
We met, we got on well, and I had no hesitation taking what was a dream job for me – to work in football and to work inside rather than the press tribune this time. I was, indeed, the translator for Roberto and his coaching team, from Italian to Russian, as we had many Russian-speaking players, while we had another translator, a Ukrainian guy, who then translated my words into Portuguese as we had a number of Brazilian players.
You don’t have any coaching credentials so was it hard at first?
I think that in any job it is important to believe in your capabilities but in the beginning I had to pay a lot of attention not to talk over Roberto. It was all about timing, so that the players received the correct instruction and could understand it well. Roberto has incredible passion, so it was also important to pay attention at all times. The most important thing is to be the voice of the coach, not to change any word or meaning, and to keep that same tone as him in the sessions. As time went on, working every day, in every session, I got to learn his methodology, the logic behind every exercise, and got to understand and be familiar with everything he was doing, while ensuring his message was always transmitted to the players.
Sadly, the war in Ukraine brought a premature end to your time there…
It’s still something that’s very painful because Ukraine is in my heart. As Roberto has already revealed, we spent the first six days of the war in a bunker in Kyiv as the bombing and shelling was happening above us. It was a very scary time and there was a curfew in place to begin with, so we didn’t even know if we could get out. I was receiving hundreds of messages from concerned family and friends. When it eventually became apparent that we could leave, it says much about Roberto as a person that he wanted to be the last to leave, after his players and staff. I eventually returned to Italy, taking my girlfriend with me, but every day I was thinking about what I had left behind. I had colleagues who had lost their houses, while Ukrainian friends could not leave as they were asked to defend their country. Roberto made a good analogy of our time there; he said it was like you had a small child growing, then someone literally taking it out of your hands.
Your latest chapter now brings you to Brighton. An easy decision to make?
It was hard in terms of the way things had ended at Shakhtar and impossible to forget what had gone before, but when Roberto called me, I was really excited and enthused to start this new chapter. When I came to Brighton for the first time, I just couldn’t believe the infrastructure – it’s incredible and far removed from what we see in Italy. Every single detail has been studied, analysed and realised. Having a good infrastructure is not enough though; you need good people too, and the staff here at Brighton have clearly played a big part in the club’s success.
You are the head coach assistant, so what does that entail?
While I am a translator for Roberto on the training pitch and in games, it’s important to note that my role is more widespread than that. I am there to assist the players if they have any technical questions to ask Roberto and the coaches, and, as head coach assistant, I also have liaison duties, in terms of assisting Roberto and the coaches in any aspect relating to on or off the pitch. I am doing my best to let everyone fully focus on the pitch, by managing and dealing properly with all the other questions not always strictly related to on the pitch.
Roberto has attempted his press conferences in English, so he’s doing well…
He’s made an incredible improvement, which everyone has noticed. With any language, once the brain starts to metabolise the language, you then start to see the person ‘feeling’ the language and it becomes more natural. While he is making his English more efficient, if he wants to get something across in more detail or needs something clarified, then I’m there to assist during the press conferences and interviews.
How does it work on the touchline. Is it hard to get your message across to the players?
There are situations when you have a break in play: when the ball goes out, a player is injured, or there’s drinks break. In that moment, I can go to the touchline if I’m asked to give instruction to the players. You have to be very reactive and stay completely focused for the whole game, to pay attention to everything Roberto is doing and saying. It has to be like that for the 90 minutes, before the game, at half-time, and after the game.
What’s the feeling like when you have a win, like Chelsea at home for instance?
I’m a football fan, I live the 90 minutes in a passionate way, so I can’t sit quietly there on my seat. The emotions are driving your behaviour, your work and it’s 90 minutes of pure adrenaline. It’s only when you sit down afterwards and reflect that you realise, with a clear mindset, what has happened. With the Chelsea game, a 4-1 result, against such a top club, it’s incredible, unbelievable. That result is now part of the history of the club. You are happy and excited to have played your part but then the realism hit in that the next game is the most important one. The next day you are back to work, preparing for the next game.
Finally, how are you enjoying the city?
I love it. I like to walk on the seafront, to visit the market, the shops – even have a cup of tea, which is strange for an Italian! If I want to chill, I put the ear pods in and I’ll walk in the direction of Hove, to the park to watch some football or rugby – it’s such a good way to relax. I love the British sense of humour and have also come across an Italian community, so I’m really enjoying it. Life’s good here.