Sacked November, hired February: Palermo's manager 'chaos'

Palermo have had five changes of manager - or allenatore in Italian - in only three months

We've all been there.

You've tried on a pair of jeans, quite liked them, but won't commit until you've visited three or four other shops. You then return to the first place and buy those jeans, having wasted the best part of an hour.

Palermo owner Maurizio Zamparini is that shopper and Beppe Iachini is that pair of jeans, having been re-hired on Monday, just three months after getting the boot.

Between 10 November and 15 February, the struggling Sicilian Serie A side brought in four other bosses before realising Iachini was their man all along.

• Davide Ballardini was the first replacement, but he was sacked in January after only seven games in charge.

• Next up was Guillermo Barros Schelotto. However, Palermo failed to realise that the Argentine did not have the necessary Uefa licence.

• Up stepped coach Giovanni Tedesco, who was handed the reins until Schelotto got his licence from Uefa. Unfortunately for Schelotto, his application was refused by European football's governing body.

• So Palermo turned to youth team coach Giovanni Bosi, who had one game in charge - Sunday's 3-1 defeat by Torino - before he was replaced by the re-hired Iachini.

"I return to Palermo with great enthusiasm for the good of the club, the team and the fans," said the returning coach.

Zamparini asked Palermo fans for forgiveness for "this month of chaos", adding that this had been because of his "wrong evaluation and misunderstanding" of Iachini.

Nowhere did the owner promise to give that trigger finger a rest though.

Palermo have failed to win any of their last four league matches and are 15th in Serie A, with 26 points from 25 games, four points clear of the drop zone.

The classic U-turn

Sacking and re-hiring managers in a single season is not unusual in Italy.

During the 2013-14 Serie A campaign, Catania ditched Rolando Maran who then returned, only to be sacked again.

Meanwhile, in the same season, Livorno dismissed Davide Nicola - the coach who led them to promotion the previous season.

Replacements Domenico Di Carlo and Attilio Perotti failed to make an impression, so Nicola was asked back again.