Andrea Pirlo can be Juventus's Zinedine Zidane after his surprise appointment as head coach, according to his fellow World Cup winner Alessandro Del Piero.
The Serie A champions sacked former Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri on Saturday within 24 hours of getting knocked out of the Champions League to Lyon.
Pirlo was only appointed the coach of the Under-23 side last week but has now got the top job ahead of Mauricio Pochettino or returns for Max Allegri or Antonio Conte.
Without Sarri in charge, Juventus will drop interest in signing Chelsea midfielder Jorginho and instead target Brescia playmaker Sandro Tonali.
Zidane, who also played for the Turin club, has won three Champions Leagues and two La Liga titles with Real Madrid. And Juventus legend Del Piero said: “It’s not a fair comparison, because Zizou had already worked with the Real Madrid youth team and then was Carlo Ancelotti’s assistant manager, but Pirlo has everything it takes to do even better than Zidane.
“He already knows the club, the players, the directors, so I think they communicated in a very clear way.”
Juventus director Fabio Paratici claimed Pirlo was “destined for greatness”. And he agreed with a question from Gigi Buffon's partner and Sky Italia presenter Ilaria D'Amico that Sarri had failed to find the right chemistry with a squad which had won the last eight scudetti.
"You've hit the nail on the head – absolutely,” he said, adding it was a "natural" decision to appoint Pirlo.
“The decision for Pirlo was very natural, in the Juventus style, because he is someone who as we said just over a week ago played with us, has always been in contact with everyone here and it felt natural," Paratici explained.
"We also believe he is destined for greatness. He was as a player and we think with confidence he can do the same as a coach.
"Andrea has in his mind the same approach to coaching as he does when he played. That’s football of great quality and hard work. He wants to propose a certain type of football, the kind European teams are generally trying to follow, and he was very convincing in his explanation to us."
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