Business With Blain: If You're Going To Fail, Fail Quickly
Mistakes happen. But decisive leadership is about moving on swiftly.
Cast your mind back to the late summer of 2020. The world was still coming to terms with COVID-19, and under the radar slipped in a change of ownership at AS Roma, as The Friedkin Group (TFG) completed a £465million (€558.7m at present exchange rates) purchase of the club from James Pallotta.
Roma would go on to finish the asterisked season fifth in Italy’s Serie A.
Attention on the club, though, increased significantly when the new owners appointed The Special One — Jose Mourinho — as their new head coach in 2021, following a relatively steady final season under Paulo Fonseca, in which they finished seventh.
Mourinho had been sacked by Tottenham towards the end of the 2020-21 season, just before Spurs were to play Manchester City in the EFL Cup final.
With TFG happy to remain behind the scenes but showing a huge commitment to the club financially, Mourinho soon did what he does (or, at least, did) best: Win.
He guided Roma to their first trophy in over a decade, with a 1-0 win over Feyenoord in the final of the inaugural Europa Conference League sealing European silverware, plus a place in the following season’s Europa League.
So far, so good for TFG, who had been quietly taking out significant costs and restructuring the business. In April of 2023, Lina Souloukou was appointed CEO.
Mourinho’s team would go on to reach a second successive European final, but this time they fell short on penalties to Europa League specialists Sevilla.
Yet, as is often the case with Mourinho, his charm only lasts so long, and his third season would prove his last. After successive sixth-placed finishes in Serie A, Mourinho departed by mutual consent in January of this year.
Director of Football Tiago Pinto appointed club legend and World Cup winner Daniele De Rossi as interim coach until the end of the season and then left the business himself a matter of weeks later. Pinto is now in place at Bournemouth.
Souloukou stepped into the breach and acted as Director of Football until Florent Ghisolfi, formerly of Nice, was appointed in May 2024, and in late June, as a reward for guiding Roma to a sixth-place finish, De Rossi became permanent coach of the club, and was handed a three-year deal.
However, after a poor start to the 2024-25 season, with no wins from the first four games, De Rossi was sacked, leaving Roma fans — specifically their ultras — who adored their legendary ex-player, not taking the news too well and placed huge pressure on Souloukou.
Ivan Juric was appointed on September 18th, and with fan activism spilling over into Souloukou’s private life, she resigned four days later, leaving Ghisolfi and TFG to pick up the pieces.
What a mess one might think: Two coaches down, a change of Sporting Director, a CEO vacancy, and a poorly performing team. The owners, whose style remains to say little publicly, soon realised there was one more domino to fall.
Unfortunately, Juric’s performance was soon considered inadequate, and despite the maelstrom surrounding the club that was not going to save him with the club dismissing him on November 10th after only twelve matches in charge, with four wins and five defeats in his time in charge.
Sacking Juric was a bold decision, particularly when TFG had said at the time of his appointment that they believed he could guide Roma to silverware. There have been reports that Juric was sacked before he even reached the dressing room after the loss to Bologna on Sunday.
The international break has come at the right time for Roma, and given TFG time to make their next move. There are other clubs in Europe, and indeed England, who may have considered confronting the situation during this convenient window for changing a manager.
TFG’s next move, it turns out, has been to appoint Claudio Ranieri.
A son of Rome, the 73-year-old Ranieri has come out of retirement to take over Roma for a third time in his illustrious and varied career. Eyebrows have been raised, but TFG will be hoping Ranieri at least proves a popular appointment among the fanbase.
TFG also confirmed Ranieri will be transitioning to "a senior executive role" at the end of the season, and will help Roma in their search for their next permanent boss.
Whether that decision turns out to be a good one will be determined, but to their credit, TFG have been decisive in their decision-making and appear to have not allowed past decisions to negatively impact their ability to make a call in the moment.
It is worth remembering, that decisions will sometimes result in failure; what seemed like the right idea at the time can, with the benefit of hindsight, be shown to be wrong. It is at this point that the best leaders can differentiate themselves from the weaker ones by moving decisively, with a desire to confront and correct the problem as best they can.
If you are going to fail, it is best to fail quickly, and if you foresee failure, you must confront that issue and seek to correct it as soon as you can.
If you learn from your mistakes, future decisions will always be better than those you made before.