Gagliardi, match analyst with Prandelli, Mancini, Pirlo and Chivu, will be at the World Cup as assistant coach of the Tehran national team: “I am a former history student, Persian culture has always fascinated me. A surprise for 2026? Japan…”
Norway, for Antonio Gagliardi and Antonio Manicone, is at most a holiday destination. In this stop in which the national team is looking for a way to America, there are Italians who are already at the World Cup: qualified. Carlo Ancelotti with Brazil, together with his son Davide, Francesco Mauri, Mino Fulco and Simone Montanaro. Then Fabio Cannavaro, who became Uzbekistan coach a month ago, with his Italian-style staff: Albarella, Chimenti, Troise. They are known. The weekend added a tricolor flag: Antonio Gagliardi, a teacher in Coverciano for many years, former tactician of Mancini in the national team and of Pirlo at Juve, has become the assistant coach of Iran, the national team where Antonio Manicone already worked. Gagliardi was on the staff of the Azzurri for 12 years and for a year with Mancio in Saudi Arabia, now he returns to Asia after six months in Parma with Chivu. In the group of coaches and assistants, he has the most particular story: he has not played football at a high level and does not come from a family of sportsmen.
How do you get to the World Cup starting from scratch?
“I started at the beginning of the 2000s, when the match analyst was not within the clubs. I was twenty years old and worked for a company, first Sics, then Opta, which had a contract with some clubs and coaches. I was Prandelli’s match analyst in Parma and Florence, then the coach brought me into the national team staff. Let’s say I did smart working…”.
Have you ever tried to become a footballer?
“I gave up early, I didn’t have the physique or even the level to make it to the pros. But I was a 10 and being in the middle of the pitch helped me learn the game.”
How do you, at twenty, make yourself respected and listened to by the champions of the national team?
“The 2008 European Championship is still one of the best memories of my life, I was 24 years old and I was perhaps the youngest ever on a technical staff. Sergio Buso was my teacher, because Adriano Bacconi invented the job of match analyst in Italy but Buso was the first real analyst. I joked with the players, I was their age, I enjoyed it.”
Having to choose, with whom is the best relationship?
“In that first period, certainly Daniele De Rossi, perhaps because we were both from 1983. Afterwards with Bonucci, Chiellini and others. There is an episode that De Rossi and I often remember. At the 2012 European Championship, before the debut against Spain, we found ourselves by chance on the basketball court in retreat. He knew that in that match he would play as a central defender in the three-man defence, a surprise, so we talked about Beckenbauer, Baresi, Blanc, Sammer, Lucio, all the players who, playing as libero, managed to advance and create superiority in the middle of the pitch. Daniele would later write his thesis on those concepts in Coverciano.”
Is the best memory of a life in the national team the European Championship?
“Yes, Mancini was and continues to be a huge reference for me. I put the European Championship on a par with the three-four months I spent last year as Chivu’s deputy. Something unique was created in Parma, when you went to sleep you couldn’t wait to get back to the office.”
Three mandatory questions: Chivu, Bonny, Leoni. What’s special about them?
“Chivu’s main quality is that he is an intelligent person. If we add the great career behind him, we are already halfway there. He strikes me as a complete coach. There are coaches who are very good at one thing and have gaps in others, he has group management, tactics, readings during the match in progress. And he knows how to talk to the players because he was one of them. Bonny is an almost unique talent but it must be understood because he is a 10 in the body of a 9, so he has to be the second striker. As a winger, he would get lost. he practices, plays in the European big leagues which can best enhance his characteristics. Then off the pitch he is very nice, he jokes, he dresses elegantly and here I see a lot of French taste.”
“How unfortunate, Giovanni. Before the injury I told everyone that he could become the captain of the national team and who knows, he might not succeed even after the cruciate rupture. He is a boy of a superior level in terms of education, seriousness, dedication. He must improve in cunning and mischief but to me he reminds me of the first De Ligt.”
By the way, how can we evaluate in hindsight that 2020-21 in Pirlo’s staff at Juventus?
“Sometimes it goes through a negative season but, in the last 5-6 years, no one at Juve has scored 78 points like Andrea. And no one has won two cups. It was clearly the best Juve in the post-scudetti cycle, even if, reviewing the matches, I notice things that I would no longer suggest. I’ve changed too: before I was more attentive to positional structures, to having the players in certain positions on the pitch, now I believe that it should be the players, not the blackboards, who determine the structures.”
And this new life in Iran?
“There is one thing that no one will believe, but I’ll say it anyway. My friends know that, in life, I had two desires: to coach Japan and to coach Iran. I studied history at university, even if I never finished it, and Persian culture fascinates me. So, since they beat the United States at the ’98 World Cup, I have followed them. Ali Daei, Mahdavikia, Ali Karimi: they have had and have strong players. When a mediator contacted me to the federation, I immediately said yes.”
“I will live in Iran and return to Italy once a month, maybe less. The coach is Amir Ghalenoei, he is an expert coach and very good at managing the team. I will work more with the rest of the staff on the tactical part but there is time: in this November break I want above all to look and understand.”
Two questions about the World Cup, avoiding the banal one about the favourite. Who could be the surprise?
“Japan. In the area they can struggle physically but, from area to area, they are already at the level of the strongest. They can reach the semi-finals.”
And, hoping that there is an Italy in the World Cup, is it better to have them in the group or not to have them?
“No, honestly it’s better not to have her in the group. Later, maybe…”.
The latest: what will Antonio Gagliardi do in five years?
“I would like to use this job to travel the world with my family. It could be as a collaborator or as a first-time coach, I feel ready. Maybe in a club in Italy or who knows, a national team. After all, in Tehran, until a week ago, who thought of it?”.
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