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Andrea Pirlo at Juventus Turin: wish meets reality

2020-09-20T15:05:10.661Z


Italy's player icon Andrea Pirlo is supposed to lead Juventus back to its former glory. He has no experience as a coach. The club relies on the vision and charisma of the maestro. The leap of faith is enormous.


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Andrea Pirlo: "I'm new to the coaching business, but not from yesterday"

Photo: 

Alberto Gandolfo / Pacific Press Agency / imago images

He was supposed to become a U23 coach, to do an apprenticeship in the third division.

A common path for a novice coach.

But Andrea Pirlo is no ordinary new coach.

Especially not in Italy, in Turin, for Juventus.

And so Juve President Andrea Agnelli had already said at the suspiciously pompous presentation of the 41-year-old as the new junior coach at the end of July: "Andrea is predestined for the first team", at least that was his wish.

A few days later, Pirlo was presented no less elaborately as the new head coach.

The leap of faith in the Pirlo institution is enormous, both in the environment and in the extreme-prone media.

World champion coach Marcelo Lippi is convinced of Pirlo: "Andrea was already my assistant coach on the pitch in 2006. He is ready for the job and should be guided by his genius as always."

With Filippo Inzaghi (with newly promoted Benevento Calcio) and Gennaro Gattuso (with SSC Napoli) Pirlo is the third coach of the 2006 world champions in the current Serie A season.

Gattuso greeted the former Milan companion with the words: "Bravo Andrea, now you've pulled your ass card. Good luck!"

From the oldest master coach to the zero game coach

Agnelli and Pirlo deepened their friendship after he left in 2015 and the Presidente let it be known that regular philosophizing about modern football had contributed to the friend's commitment.

Pirlo is also part of the family and knows "what Juve DNA means".

Conversely, of course, that also meant: Predecessor Maurizio Sarri did not know.

more on the subject

Juventus and coach Sarri: because they don't know what they're doing by Danial Montazeri

Turin had never made friends with his mixture of a native Neapolitan and a Tuscan by choice, two anti-Juventus bastions, even less with Sarri's ungalant blue polo shirt and the constant chewing of the cigarette filter.

Sarri was the second master coach after Max Allegri to be sacked by Juventus within twelve months.

After Juventus failed in the Champions League round of 16 at Lyon, the club switched from the oldest championship coach in Serie A history to someone who has not been responsible for coaching for a second.

In mid-September, Pirlo received Uefa Pro approval after a 240-hour coaching course.

Renzo Ulivieri, head of the coaching school, described the thesis "My Calcio" as "modern, tangible, realistic. An offensive spectacle without losing sight of the pragmatism of results."

It came, it was, it inspired

However, Pirlo doesn't need an exam to know what record champions Juventus are all about.

"I'm new to the coaching business, but not from yesterday. At Juventus, only success and trophies count - it was like that as a player, it's like that as a coach," said the 41-year-old, who shone on the pitch with all of his player stations .

In any case, Pirlo's vision and his charisma are currently perhaps more valuable to Juventus than years of experience on the sidelines.

When playing as a player, Pirlo was seen as someone who regularly warned colleagues to be professional and responsible.

Keeper Gianluigi Buffon once said that training alongside Pirlo every day showed him that God exists.

Juventus needs that spark that Pirlo once inspired in their colleagues.

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Andrea Pirlo and Gianluigi Buffon at the 2014 World Cup. Buffon jokingly asked after Pirlo's promotion to head coach: "Do I have to call you Mister now?"

Photo: imago sportfotodienst / imago images / ZUMA Press

Against this background, Pirlo's commitment flirts with those of Pep Guardiola at FC Barcelona and Zinédine Zidane at Real Madrid.

The daring decision also closes an internal circle.

In 2011, when Pirlo scolded Milan after ten years of being "scrapped and buried" as a reserve, he moved to rival Juventus on a free transfer.

He came together with coach Antonio Conte - and both established the era of nine championships in a row, including two Champions League finals.

"The sacrifice and obsession with success were incomparable. Under Conte, my desire to also become a coach matured. His speeches were unique. If we call Arrigo Sacchi genius, there are no words for Conte," Pirlo said recently of the man who who as coach of Inter could become his toughest opponent.

On Sunday evening (8.45 p.m.) the league starts against Sampdoria.

Pirlo's plan for success is: absolute dominance, immediate recapture in the event of loss of the ball, vertical play and tactical flexibility.

He looks at Sassuolo's up-and-coming coach Roberto De Zerbi, AZ Alkmaar and RB Leipzig as well as Louis van Gaal's Ajax and Johan Cruyff's Barcelona - a mix that we can look forward to.

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Source: spiegel

All sports articles on 2020-09-20

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