Massimiliano Allegri allowed a lighter moment into Napoli’s build-up to the Champions League meeting with Bodo/Glimt, exchanging jokes with Carlo Pellegatti before turning to the football business of the eve.
Key takeaways
- Allegri greeted Carlo Pellegatti with a question about horses as the press conference began.
- The journalist said he had visited the previous day because he believed a horse belonged to the Napoli coach.
- Allegri’s reply suggested there was indeed a connection between him and the horse.
- Pellegatti said the horse he had backed went on to win, prompting an amused response from Allegri.
- Horses have long been part of Allegri’s life, dating back to childhood visits to Livorno’s Caprilli racecourse with his grandfather.
A familiar world beyond the touchline
Spotting Pellegatti in the room, Allegri opened with a smile: “Carlo Pellegatti is here in Naples… how are the horses?”
Pellegatti responded that he had gone to see one the day before, thinking it was Allegri’s. “It was…,” the coach answered, leaving little doubt that the horse was linked to him. When the journalist added that he had backed it and it had won, Allegri replied: “Well, you are not unlucky.”
The exchange was brief, but it touched on an interest that has accompanied Allegri well beyond his coaching career. As a boy in Livorno, he was taken by his grandfather to the Caprilli racecourse, and horses have remained one of his preferred escapes from the noise surrounding football.
The meaning of the “short nose”
That attachment also helped shape one of Allegri’s best-known expressions: the “short nose”. In racing terms, a victory need not be emphatic; it is enough to get the nose in front at the finish.
It has become a useful image for the coach’s wider view of competition. In a long season, margins matter, and the final result carries more weight than the distance between the winner and those behind. Ahead of Napoli’s European night against Bodo/Glimt, the conversation offered a glimpse of a personal reference point that has stayed with Allegri from Livorno to the biggest stages of Italian football.
