Living in the Past: Serie A’s Coaching Future

Milan fans who talk about having seven Champions League trophies are often told that they are living in the past. However, Milan’s past is now Serie A’s future: three, possibly four of the players who lifted Milan’s last two Champions League trophies will be coaching in Serie A next season. That doesn’t even count Maldini as Milan’s technical director, or Dida, reported to be Milan’s goalkeeping coach next season. It seems as though living in the past is actually not just Milan, but all of Serie A’s future.

Milan's past is living on

The four Milan players now turned coaches were also all part of Italy’s World Cup winning team of 2006. While Lippi always said that there would be a lot of coaches from that squad, and there was actually a special coaching course exclusively for those winners, it is the Milan players from that Italy side who have come out on top. Here are the players and the clubs they will be managing next year:

Trying to break the curse?

Andrea Pirlo, Juventus

Beginning with the most recent and shocking appointment is Pirlo, handed the reins of Juventus, despite only receiving his coaching badges last summer and never having coached a single match. Pirlo has actually won as many Champions League trophies as the club he now works for has won, but he won them with Milan (ironically, one of them against Juventus.) This decision to appoint him is widely seen as high risk. Given Pirlo’s abilities as a player, it could possibly go very well, or he will fall flat on his face for lack of experience. But what have Juventus got to lose? They have lost as many Champions League finals as Milan have won. Maybe a former Milan player is what they need?

More than meets the eye

Gennaro Gattuso, Napoli

Gattuso began as a player-coach, and is entering his seventh season as a coach. After one and a half seasons at Milan, bringing the club to within one point of Champions League, Gattuso was hired midseason by Napoli this past year to clean up after one Carlo Ancelotti. He won the Coppa Italia against Juventus this summer, his first trophy as a coach. Having been knocked out of the Champions League Round of 16 on Saturday by none other than Barcelona, Milan’s former bulldog has shown he has more than people thought when it comes to managing, and is worthy of a club like Napoli.

Back in Serie A

Pippo Inzaghi, Benevento

Much is being said about facing off with his brother, Simone, who has done very well at Lazio. But Pippo also joins his former Milan teammates, his job at the helm of Benevento, having secured promotion to Serie A by winning Serie B this past season. He is actually entering his eighth year of coaching, beginning with Milan’s youth teams immediately after retiring, being “burned” as first team coach as well. With spells at Venezia and Bologna, he is now back in Serie A with all of his trademark passion.

If they win on Wednesday, he's back in Serie A, too

Alessandro Nesta, Frosinone

Nesta’s Frosinone are down a goal to Pordenone in the Serie A promotion playoffs, with the second leg to be played on Wednesday, so whether or not he joins his former teammates back in Serie A is still in question. He began his coaching career in the United States, with Miami FC, a team co-owned by former captain and teammate, Paolo Maldini. He then took charge of Perugia, and moved on to Frosinone this past season. Should his team succeed and make it into Serie A, former Milan players would make up 20% of Serie A’s coaching staff.

Champions for club and country, now the future of Serie A

Most fans measure success by trophies, and Juventus fans especially like to point out that it has been a while since Milan won a Champions League trophy, even though it’s been so very much longer for them. But from Milan’s “past” of Champions League winning teams is emerging an exciting group of new coaches, the likes of which no other team can boast. Milan’s past is perpetuating success still, only instead of being measured in trophies, it can now be measured in coaching talent. Milan’s past is Serie A’s future.

This post inspired by the music of Cake’s “The Distance”