{"id":54668,"date":"2026-06-15T23:32:30","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T23:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/alessio-dionisi-watford-appoint-italian-as-new-head-coach\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T23:32:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T23:32:30","slug":"alessio-dionisi-watford-appoint-italian-as-new-head-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/alessio-dionisi-watford-appoint-italian-as-new-head-coach\/","title":{"rendered":"Alessio Dionisi: Watford appoint Italian as new head coach"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Watford have appointed Alessio Dionisi as head coach on a two-year contract. <\/b><\/p>\n

The 46-year-old Italian replaces Ed Still, who was sacked<\/a> on 3 May after less than three months in charge at Vicarage Road.<\/p>\n

Watford were thrashed 4-0 by Coventry City<\/a> in Still’s final game and finished 16th in the Championship, 16 points adrift of the play-off places.<\/p>\n

Dionisi is Watford’s 12th head coach, not including interim bosses, since the end of the 2020-21 season, and the 24th since the Pozzo family took over the club in 2012. <\/p>\n

“Alessio has been on our radar for a long period and we are really pleased to have reached an agreement with him,” sporting director Gianluca Nani said.<\/p>\n

“We made it clear we were looking for an experienced coach who has won leagues and been promoted – and Alessio fits the profile.” <\/p>\n

Dionisi was sacked by Serie B club Empoli in March after only five months in charge following a run of five wins in 22 matches.<\/p>\n

But, as is common practice in Italy, Dionisi remained under contract at the Tuscan club on gardening leave.<\/p>\n

Watford have now reached an agreement with Empoli over his contract with them, which was set to run until near the end of 2027.<\/p>\n

Dionisi will bring Luca Vigiani, who worked under former Watford boss Walter Mazzarri in the 2016-17 season, back to Vicarage Road as an analyst, along with new head of physical performance Fabio Spighi.<\/p>\n

He will now embark on his 10th job in a 12-year managerial career, the first outside of his homeland.<\/p>\n

“He is an excellent coach, who we believe has the credentials to get the best out of the players we have in the squad and those we want to add,” Nani said.<\/p>\n

“I know Alessio is really excited by the opportunity and we look forward to seeing the positive impact he will have here.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Watford have appointed Alessio Dionisi as head coach on a two-year contract. The 46-year-old Italian replaces Ed Still, who was sacked on 3 May after less than three months in charge at Vicarage Road. Watford were thrashed 4-0 by Coventry City in Still’s final game and finished 16th in the Championship, 16 points adrift of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[15585,1427,3814,15586,3041,7976],"class_list":["post-54668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-england","tag-alessio","tag-appoint","tag-coach","tag-dionisi","tag-italian","tag-watford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54670,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54668\/revisions\/54670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}