{"id":590905,"date":"2021-05-11T07:28:44","date_gmt":"2021-05-11T11:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=590905"},"modified":"2026-03-15T13:53:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T17:53:42","slug":"juventus-andrea-pirlo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/05\/11\/juventus-andrea-pirlo\/","title":{"rendered":"The Juventus Andrea Pirlo Gamble Has Far From Paid Off"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">Choosing an inexperienced coach is always a gamble. Sometimes gambles pay off, yes, just look at <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/04\/11\/real-madrid-season\/\" target=\"_self\">Zinedine Zidane and Real Madrid.<\/a> Look at <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/03\/07\/steven-gerrard-wins-rangers-scottish-premiership\/\" target=\"_self\">Steven Gerrard and his title winning Rangers side.<\/a> But at least they had prior experience at youth level. Their gamble was one that carried less risk. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/05\/10\/juventus-european-super-league\/\" target=\"_self\">Juventus<\/a>, by some contrast, went all-in on Andrea Pirlo, a legendary midfielder with a grand total of zero management experience. The Juventus Andrea Pirlo gamble has not paid off.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">They played their last hand in hope of winning the lot, but, by the looks of it, the rest of the Serie A were all showing professional poker faces as Pirlo arrived. Now, at the end of the season, the likes of <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/05\/10\/zlatan-ibrahimovic-injury-update\/\" target=\"_self\">AC Milan,<\/a> Atalanta and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/05\/04\/romelu-lukaku-inter-milan\/\" target=\"_self\">Inter Milan<\/a> are holding the most meaningful cards and Juventus have been left looking like the joker.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">The Andrea Pirlo gamble has far from paid off for Juventus. The sooner they realise that, the better.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s3\">The Juventus Andrea Pirlo Gamble Has Not Paid Off<\/span><\/h2>\n<h3 class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s4\">From Titles Galore to Struggling for Top Four<\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">Football is always a strange game, but around Europe, there have been a list of certainties in the last five years with one being Juventus retaining the Serie A crown. Maurizio Sarri was hit with more criticism than any Juventus manager had been hit with for years despite winning the title.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">His side weren\u2019t up to the usual standards, but, crucially, they were still labelled champions of Italy. Yet, off he went, dismissed by Juventus, replaced by a man with all the know-how on the pitch but, clearly, little when in the technical area. And, yes, the argument could be had that he needed this season to learn, but surely there are better ways to learn than by ending Juventus\u2019 near decade of dominance and costing them a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/04\/03\/european-qualification-missing-out-champions-league\/\" target=\"_self\">place in the Champions League<\/a>?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">Andrea Pirlo has had plenty of resources, too. He has Paulo Dybala, Alvaro Morata and Federico Chiesa all at his disposal. And that\u2019s without mentioning one of the greatest players of all time in Cristiano Ronaldo. Resources have not been the problem for Pirlo. Tactics combined with inexperience have.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">The Italian giants are lucky to still have a chance at a Champions League place. In truth, if it wasn\u2019t for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/italian-serie-a\/top-scorers\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Serie A top goalscorer Ronaldo<\/a>, they\u2019d already be down and out for the count.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s4\">Potentially the Beginning of the Juventus Downfall if Andrea Pirlo Stays<\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">As alluded to before, the goals of Cristiano Ronaldo have carried Juventus on far too many occasions this season. From a Juve point of view, they\u2019ll be grateful to have one of the world\u2019s best. But from a Ronaldo point of view, frustration will be starting to set in.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">At 36, is the former <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/05\/09\/consecutive-top-four-finishes\/\" target=\"_self\">Manchester United<\/a> man really going to stick around for a season in the Europa League? And, even if they do qualify for the Champions League, Will Ronaldo stick around knowing a title win next season is unlikely?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">He has dragged Juventus into a position of slight hope, but a player of Ronaldo\u2019s stature will not think twice of releasing the Andrea Pirlo anchor so that he can sail to success one more time in his illustrious career.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<br \/>\n<a id=\"zuc7y8ZiSAhW68uwfsE6wQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1232655475\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'zuc7y8ZiSAhW68uwfsE6wQ',sig:'4bojmrL6Totxkv7JdRIKAnQPqVH1OdHLFDJ4JK8_Nvw=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1232655475',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Choosing an inexperienced coach is always a gamble. Sometimes gambles pay off, yes, just look at Zinedine Zidane and Real Madrid. Look at Steven Gerrard and his title winning Rangers side. But at least they had prior experience at youth level. Their gamble was one that carried less risk. Juventus, by some contrast, went all-in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3402,"featured_media":590910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,1362],"tags":[5047,2298],"class_list":["post-590905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-serie-a","category-featured","category-juventus","tag-andrea-pirlo","tag-cristiano-rolando"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3402"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590905"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":666632,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590905\/revisions\/666632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}