Following a run of poor form lasting several weeks, Udinese Calcio have slipped to second-bottom in Serie A. The sacking of manager Kosta Runjaic, which the media had already been anticipating, was finally confirmed this Monday evening. What remains? A positive impression, nonetheless.
Kosta Runjaic’s time at Udinese Calcio has come to an end. What had already been reported by, amongst others, *La Gazzetta dello Sport* was finally officially confirmed by the club’s board – who announced the parting of ways with the 55-year-old head coach on Monday evening.
The coach, who had previously managed clubs in Germany including 1. FC Kaiserslautern, MSV Duisburg and 1860 Munich in the 2. Bundesliga, had been working in Friuli since 2024 and had steered the team in a thoroughly positive direction – 12th place at the end of the 2024/25 season and 10th place this year bear witness to this.
This season, however, the spark failed to ignite the path to success. Instead, the Bianconeri’s engine spluttered badly. Since their 3–2 win at Monza on matchday 2, the team led by former Bayern player David Alaba has picked up just one point from eight matches and has slipped to second-last place in the Serie A table.
To make matters worse, Udine suffered a bitter 2–5 home defeat against Roma last Saturday. According to Italian media, the list of shortcomings extends across all areas of the team. Consequently, Runjaic had recently failed to instil in his players the necessary fighting spirit to pull themselves out of the crisis.
” “The club and the manager are parting ways after more than two years of working together and achieving important goals,” wrote Udinese Calcio in its official statement, whilst at the same time warmly thanking the Vienna-born manager for a period “marked by significant successes” – as well as his staff members Przemyslaw Malecki and Alexander Trukan, who have also left.
Meanwhile, the Italian media had immediately named Paolo Zanetti and Vladimir Petkovic as the leading candidates to succeed him. In the end, it was the former who won the race, having been announced as the new manager just hours after Runjaic’s departure. Zanetti, who until recently was in charge of Hellas Verona – a club relegated from Serie A and now in Serie B – faces a tough first challenge straight away: on Friday (8.45 pm), to kick off the 11th round of Serie A fixtures, Udine have a relegation battle against bottom-of-the-table FC Venezia.