While Italy’s first opponent in the Nations League already has a new coach—Belgium hired Mark van Bommel—the Azzurri’s search is proving somewhat more complicated. Even the “stopgap solution,” Andrea Pirlo, is suddenly looking shaky.
The euphoria quickly faded. Italy had only just warmed up to the new sports director duo of Paolo Maldini and Leonardo and was reveling in World Cup dreams when talks began with Pep Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti about appointing one of them as head coach. Both politely declined.
No notable achievements as a coach so far
That left the third choice on the list of candidates—Andrea Pirlo. It doesn’t take a wild imagination to understand the skeptical reaction to the news when, instead of appointing Pep or Carletto, a figure from the ranks of ordinary coaches is ultimately set to take the helm. Pirlo’s charisma from his playing days is beyond question, but his coaching career has yielded few noteworthy achievements. Over the past four years, he has coached Karagümrük, second-division side Sampdoria, and, most recently, FC United in Dubai.
Pirlo got his start at Juventus and was hyped up by then-president Andrea Agnelli as “the Chosen One” and “our Guardiola”—a prophecy that has yet to be fulfilled. The scenario is dangerously reminiscent of last year, when delegation head Gianluigi Buffon hired his World Cup teammate Gennaro Gattuso; by now, everyone knows where that project led. The public and political circles gave it a thumbs-down before Pirlo had even put pen to paper on the planned contract running through 2030. That’s set to happen this week—though certainly not without a few hurdles; that would be too easy for the Azzurri, after all.
A failure is still possible
Federation president Giovanni Malago, who had actually placed Pirlo toward the back of his list of candidates, first wants to examine whether Pirlo’s collaboration with a major Russian betting provider might preclude his appointment. Pirlo was in Moscow just two months ago for a PR event, as the owner of FC United has financial interests in the betting company. Malago fears future complications and political damage to the federation’s image—unlike in the cases of Maldini and Leonardo—since Pirlo can unilaterally terminate both existing agreements, and they “share the vision for the future project,” as Maldini explained.
A concept that should be oriented more toward lax organizational structures than toward the figure of the head coach. So the official presentation may be postponed by a few days, or it might even fall through unexpectedly. Then it would be back to square one, and the search would start over—and certainly wouldn’t be any easier. There’s still plenty of time until the next home game at the end of September, the Nations League opener against Belgium, which, by the way, has already appointed a new coach in the form of former Bundesliga pro and coach Mark van Bommel. It can be that simple, after all.