“Pirlo? Is it like giving away a first-rate Ferrari?”

The Juventus course is not being the expected one. Andrea Pirlo’s debut as an elite coach is being uneven and, for now, far from successful. Dealing with Cristiano Ronaldo departure rumors for weeks, the team is fourth, 13 points behind the leaders in Serie A with five matchdays to gos. Also in the Champions were eliminated at the first exchange by Porto in the round of 16.

One of those critical voices, not from the world of football but from sport in Italy, has been that of Flavio Briatore. The former boss of Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher in F1, among others, has been very tough on Pirlo. In the program ‘Politics in the Ball’ Briatore has been dispatched at ease about the management of the Juventus bench: “We had a team that didn’t play that well, but they won. Now, they have changed everything. There was Pirlo’s bet, which is as if you get your driving license and they give you a Ferrari to drive as your first car. Pirlo was a benchmark on the field, not on the bench. We have lost against inferior teams since the beginning of the League. We have important players but we don’t have a good midfield and that is the consequence of the coach’s wrong decisions. With Allegri we could have kept winning. Everything was changed and this is the result “,

“Max knows how to manage champions. Pirlo is a great player, but it is one thing to be a pilot and another to be a team manager“, he added, drawing a parallel with F1.