Sunderland Add More Italians To Scouting Staff

Sunderland have added more former Inter staff to their back room with the appointment of Massimo Mirabelli recently, who today revealed that he's brought with him a few more from the Milan side.

The duo of Franco Pulin and Raphael Papone will be joining a new look scouting team, under the watchful eye of Valentino Angeloni, who it is revealed is taking full charge of the scouting, as Mirabelli explained;

Angeloni some time ago reached out for my help, which I accepted despite being happy at Inter, I came because I admire Angeloni.

Mirabelli also revealed how things will work, and how the back room staff is taking shape;

The organization is different from the Italian way. The Director of Football, which for us is De Fanti, holds the reins of the team and manages 360 degrees, while the technical part is handled by the chief scout, in our case Angeloni.

He is at the chief scout. Besides me, interact with him as well Antonio D'Ottavio (formerly of Torino), Raphael Papone and Franco Pulin (both formerly of Inter).

D'Ottavio joined a few weeks ago, while Pulin and Papone are relatively new names in the frame.

Little seems to be known about the duo other than they have a very good reputation for scouting younger players in Italy, and used to produce a seasonal book of their reports on players aged 21 and under. This lead to freelance roles with Padova and Roma before becoming part of the staff at the San Siro.

All seem to be very solid appointments, fitting with what is clearly a new way of working for the club.

At the moment the scouting staff, to our knowledge, consists of Angeloni, along with Mirabelli, Papone, Pulin, D'Ottavio and Mo Kamara, the only remaining scout from the Pop Robson-era, and the man who is credited with bringing El-Hadji Ba to the club's attention.