Report: Andrea Barzagli won’t be joining Max Allegri’s coaching staff after all

In the days following Max Allegri being announced as Juventus’ new manager, the stories about his wishlist for his second go-around with the club began to come out. One of them involved one of his most loyal and consistent players from the first stint in Turin, Andrea Barzagli, and having the former Juve defender coming back to join Allegri’s coaching staff.

A few weeks later, it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen.

Romeo Agresti of Goal Italia reported late Thursday night that Barzagli has decided not to join Allegri’s staff, which will report for duty later this month when preseason training starts at Continassa July 14. Instead, Barzagli has reportedly accept a job with streaming service DAZN, which bought Serie A’s broadcasting rights through 2023-24 earlier this year.

This would have been Barzagli’s second stint as an assistant coach at Juventus having previously been a part of Maurizio Sarri’s coaching staff. Although that time as an assistant coach on Sarri’s staff didn’t last long, Barzagli always had the makings of somebody who was going to get back into the coaching game when the situation was the right kind of deal.

And that seemed to be with somebody like Allegri because of the relationship the two had when Barzagli was a player and spent the final years of his career under Allegri’s watch.

But it looks like that won’t be happening — at least for now. You know with DAZN getting into the full-time streaming Serie A game they were going to go out and try to bring in as many big names as possible, with Barzagli being one of them. And knowing that Barzagli is somebody who has been living a pretty quiet and somewhat private life since retiring — I mean, the dude’s last post on social media was in November 2020 — then spending more time with the family, doing a little TV work and getting paid well for it rather than the eight- or nine-month coaching grind seems like a good choice to make.

Maybe we’ll see Barzagli back at Juventus one day as a coach or member of the front office. But that time is just not ready to happen just yet.