Who is Comoli? Juventus has found a director who "explains everything with algorithms"

Sports Weekly Special Correspondent in Italy Xiao Wu

Are you ready to welcome the "magic ball" version of Juventus?

On June 1, local time in Italy, Juventus Club officially announced the appointment of Damian Comoli: "From June 4, 2025, he will officially join the club and serve as general manager, and report directly to CEO Maurizio Scanavino." In the words of "Turin Sports", Juventus has ushered in another "Marota"-like character. Indeed, after Marotta left, neither Agnelli was in power nor Jontoli was in charge of the competitive department. The announcement also revealed that Comoli will not only be responsible for the sports field, but also take into account the management of the market and business departments, which is a step ahead. Who is

Comoli?

Who is Comoli? Can he get such great power in a short period of time, so that the boss behind the scenes John Elkan can rest assured to hand over the club to him to manage? In fact, Comoli is a generalist in the field of football. He worked as a coach, scout, and then a sports director since he was in the early twenties. Until he served as chairman in Toulouse in Ligue 1, Comoli, 53, had climbed all the way to the top of the field of football.

So how did John Elkan know such a character? You should know that before this, Comoli and Italy had no intersection. The answer is that Elkan proposed the executive portrait he wanted through an American headhunter company and then filtered it out through algorithms. This is exactly what is worrying, because in the entire Italian football circle, the one who is most familiar with Comoli is the boss Cardinale, the most unfamiliar with Serie A. AC Milan's boss and Comoli are both in the "algorithm universe" and believe in the "magic ball theory". Toulouse is another European club controlled by Red Bird Group in addition to Milan. Comoli resigned from Toulouse to Juventus, which means the second step of the "magic ball" theory penetrates into Serie A. Is the

algorithm really suitable for Juventus?

Comoli once famously said: "All our football decisions are based on data. Whether it is coach selection or personnel selection, offense and defense, shooting and crossing, oppression tactics, or even optimization of salary structure - data is part of our culture." We should not demonize "algorithms". With the development of the data field, in fact, each club has long had its own algorithms, but there are still a few people like Comoli who try to use algorithms to explain everything. In Toulouse, he worked with an analytical company to build a system that can monitor 70 leagues around the world. The data is no longer just used to select people, he also applies it to recovery management, physical load, and even player sleep habit analysis.

Comoli spoke at the Internet Summit held in Lisbon in 2023: "The second day after the game, the report will not write the results, but will only list the key data to explain why we lose or why we win." Former Tottenham head coach Martin Yoll once commented on him as "focusing on profits and disregarding the team's needs", which is obviously contrary to Juventus' motto that has been upheld for 40 years, "Victory is the only important thing."

More importantly, John Elkan also began to believe in algorithms. It is common to rely on headhunting consulting companies to find executives in the financial industry, but in the football circle, this method is not common because football clubs are too special and many things cannot be explained by algorithms. A recent example in Serie A is Rome. Former CEO Lina Suluku was the candidate found through a headhunting company, foreign managers plus foreign sports directors (Gisolfi). This model has proven to be a disaster in Rome, and now Juventus has also begun to follow this path. Comoli and Gisolfi have one thing in common. You can tell from their surnames that they are both typical Italian descendants, but they don’t speak Italian at all. Cardinale, Gisolfi, Comoli. This phenomenon of de-Italized foreigners "returning back" is becoming more and more common.

Fortunately, Comoli has much more experience in football than Suluku. He discovered Modric at Tottenham, and then served as Liverpool's technical director with the recommendation of Billy Bean, the founder of Magic Ball Theory, and signed Suarez. But it also created a failed expensive signing like Darren Bent and Andy Carroll. The most feared that Comoli was divorced from the status quo, ignored the laws of Italian football development, and handed everything to the algorithm, AC Milan was the precedent. Because Milan and Juventus are both clubs with glorious history, every mistake will bring huge pressure and you cannot tolerate any operation at will. Maybe Comoli is a person with far-reaching influence in the long run, but the impetuous Italian environment is difficult to give him enough patience. Moreover, as the French themselves told, Comoli is a very strong person, and he is accustomed to having to control everything by himself, which has conflicts with almost every management and head coach. Just left a Jontoli who was good at "palace fighting" and another Comolly came. When will Juventus' internal turmoil end?

It is gratifying that together with Comoli, announced that the meritorious de Chiellini became the club's new "football strategy director" and was responsible for the field of competitive affairs. This is a moment that Juventus fans have long been looking forward to. Locatelli was appointed as the captain, and Chiellini returned to participate in team building, which shows that Juventus has not completely abandoned tradition. The current situation is that Tudor, who injects spiritual strength into the team, is likely to remain in office. I hope he will not be the second-in-law Allegri and become a victim of disagreement within the club. It looks like John Elkan is already tired of the club's status quo, and Juventus is becoming more and more like Ferrari.