Andrea Pirlo

Ronaldo has been self-isolating since testing positive for COVID-19 while on international duty with Portugal and missed Juve's 1-1 draw with Crotone in Serie A last weekend and their 2-0 Champions League win over Dynamo Kiev on Tuesday. 

Pirlo revealed on Saturday that Ronaldo remains unavailable, though Juve were waiting on the result of the 35-year-old's most-recent test to see if he could return to training.

The Bianconeri have only played 13 Serie A matches without the Portugal captain since his arrival prior to the 2018-19 season and their win percentage in those games stands at 54 per cent, while they have been victorious in 73 per cent of league fixtures when he does play.

One forward who will feature on Sunday, however, is Dybala, who made his first appearance of the season against Dynamo and is set to start against Verona. 

Dybala played 33 times in Serie A last season, scoring 11 goals and providing six assists, but a thigh injury limited his game time this term. 

"We had time to rest after the trip to Dynamo Kiev, so apart from Giorgio Chiellini, everyone else is available," Pirlo told a news conference.  

"As of last night [Friday], I had no news on Ronaldo's COVID status. We all had swabs this morning, including Ronaldo at home. He is definitely out of the match against Hellas. 

"I can confirm Dybala will start tomorrow. He had the right progress in training and it's only fair now that he starts the match. 

"I always said it was an issue of time, as he had the injury, then a virus on international duty. The two times he was on the bench without coming on, it was because we'd gone down to 10 men. He played in Kiev as a substitute, it's only right that he starts tomorrow." 

While Dybala and Ronaldo have been absent, Alvaro Morata has performed well, scoring three goals in the past two matches. 

"This is why we signed him," said Pirlo. "We knew he was a great player who provided us with different tactical options, he knows Dybala well and I think they can happily coexist in the same line-up. 

"With Atletico Madrid, he had recently been accustomed to playing largely on the back foot, so there were 80 metres in front of him to go on the counter-attack. 

"We try to keep the ball, work on the position of the body when receiving a pass, pressing to free up a man. We work for each other to ensure we can move the ball quickly." 

As a coach, we can surmise but really it is a guessing game as to what we will be getting from Pirlo as the dugout rookie leads Juventus into the 2020-21 season.

On Sunday evening in Italy, the man who was a World Cup winner in 2006 takes charge of his first Serie A game with Juve, who play Sampdoria in Turin.

Maurizio Sarri's Juve reign lasted just one season, albeit another Scudetto-yielding campaign for the most successful club in the league's history. Pirlo will be expected to deliver at least that level of success, and encourage a swagger too.

He joins a host of significant former players plucked for leadership roles at an elite level, typically on a hunch rooted in familiarity, the chosen ones often still fresh from their playing days and with scant experience to call on. Top marks in coaching exams provide no guarantee that success will follow.

Many times, the gamble on a colt coach has paid off, with presidents and owners rightly sensing the novice harbours the innate expertise to lead and to inspire, and crucially to bring results. On other occasions, it has ended in frustration and tears, and in some instances the jury remains out.

Here is a look at just some of those cases, illustrating how there are no guarantees attached to such appointments.

PEP GUARDIOLA

The go-to example for any club that wishes to justify appointing a club legend to sudden seniority on the coaching side, former midfield general Guardiola was just 37 when he took charge at Barcelona in 2008, after a year coaching the B team. He departed four years and 14 trophies later, including three LaLiga titles and two Champions League triumphs, and was vaunted as the world's best coach.

Further successes have come with Bayern Munich and Manchester City. Plainly, Pep was born to lead and Barcelona were wise to the fact.

ZINEDINE ZIDANE

How would Zidane, the mercurial playmaker – the only rival to Brazil striker Ronaldo when assessing the greatest player of their generation – take to coaching? Could the erstwhile Galactico tease out the best from those who can but dream of matching the twinkling feet and god-gifted balance with which he was blessed? Could the former Real Madrid maestro really be a suitable fit for the Bernabeu job that has swallowed up many an experienced coach?

Three Champions Leagues and two LaLiga titles later, we probably have a decent idea of the answer to those questions. There have still been ups and downs, and a brief split along the way, but 18 months in charge of Madrid's B team – Castilla – hardened Zidane for the obstacles he would face in the top job. His Madrid sides have at times lacked the verve that was his signature as a player, but they have delivered results and abundant trophies, and ultimately that is what counts.

MICHEL PLATINI

Before there was Zidane, France had Platini. A wonder of an attacking midfielder with Nancy, Saint-Etienne and Juventus, Platini was also a goalscoring titan of the France team that won Euro 84 and reached semi-finals at the 1982 and 1986 World Cups. It followed, to those that knew him, that Platini would go on to become a great national-team coach too, and at the age of 33 he was appointed to lead France, having retired as a player a year earlier. Platini took over with France already at a low ebb and defeats under his charge against Yugoslavia and Scotland meant they missed out on reaching the 1990 World Cup.

Could Platini bounce back? It seemed he might when France reached Euro 92 in style, with eight wins from eight qualifiers, Platini nurturing the likes of Didier Deschamps and Laurent Blanc, but Les Bleus flopped at the tournament itself as they and England bowed out of a group from which Sweden and Denmark advanced. Platini resigned not long afterwards, began to forge a solid reputation in football administration, and by the late 1990s had built a strong, ultimately fateful, alliance with the then FIFA secretary general Sepp Blatter. He would never coach again.

DIEGO MARADONA

If there were ever a case of being blinded by celebrity, then some of the presidents who have given Diego Armando Maradona coaching work surely have fallen victim. The biggest star of his generation, Maradona retired from playing in 1997 and, with barely a sniff of coaching experience and just about as much baggage as an airport carousel, was named boss of his native Argentina in 2008, tasked with taking the Albicelestes to the World Cup two years later. Argentina scraped their way into the finals and were thumped 4-0 by Germany in the quarter-finals. Maradona's contract was not renewed.

He has continued to pick up coaching work, one curious-looking appointment after another, most recently with Gimnasia in the Argentinian top flight. Maradona the coach has been no match for Maradona the player, and it was naive surely for anyone to think that was ever remotely possible.

FRANK LAMPARD

Pirlo was an artist of the 21st century game, and he is considered a deep thinker, while the common theory is that English midfield counterpart Lampard achieved much of his success through hard graft and maximising his rather more rudimentary talent. Whether either categorisation fits the bill is a moot point, but Lampard has a wiser head on his shoulders than many footballers, was top of the class in his school days, and his IQ is reputed to be through the roof.

Derby County gave him a first break in coaching but it took Chelsea just a year to pounce and parachute Lampard into his first Premier League manager's job. A Stamford Bridge great as a player, Lampard had an acceptable first season as Blues boss but the acid test comes in this new term after a spree of big-money signings. A high-stakes London gamble will play out in the coming months.

ALAN SHEARER

As Pirlo takes charge of those in the Bianconeri stripes he once wore – Cristiano Ronaldo and all – it bears remembering that returning black and white messiahs can fail. Former Newcastle United striker Shearer returned to St James' Park in April 2009, the club's record goalscorer aiming to rescue the team from the threat of relegation, but a dismal return of five points from eight games saw them sink out of the Premier League.

Shearer left and has not coached since, happily staying in his niche as a television pundit. There are pressures but also a certain comfort to that studio role. Two months at Newcastle was the sum of Shearer's coaching career: as Pirlo may yet find out, that can be all it takes to destroy the notion of it being a natural next step.

Mihajlovic was part of Eriksson's Lazio team that won the 1999-2000 Serie A title, with his set-piece prowess, fierce tackling and combative attitude making Mihajlovic a standout figure in that era.

His death was announced by his family on Friday, with Mihajlovic succumbing to leukaemia at the age of 53.

As well as playing spells in Italy with Roma, Sampdoria, Lazio and Inter, Mihajlovic was a European Cup winner in 1991 with Red Star Belgrade and a long-time Yugoslavia international.

His free-kicks were among the best in the game, and he later took to coaching, with Milan, Fiorentina, Sampdoria, Torino and Bologna among the clubs he led from the touchline.

Mihajlovic and Roberto Mancini, now the Italy head coach, were both highly influential figures in Eriksson's great Lazio side.

"Mihajlovic was a very successful player," Eriksson told Italian broadcaster Sky Sport 24. "For him there was no such thing as finishing second. He was generous, an intelligent and fabulous player. He was someone who helped everyone in the team, especially the youngsters. It's all very sad.

"He was a great coach even when he was still a player. He had to become a coach, it was known. He was a very intelligent player, he understood everything in football, I didn't need to talk about tactics with him.

"I don't know how many games Lazio have won due to his free-kicks or penalties. I remember that he was a very successful man and very helpful with everyone.

"He was different from me in terms of character, but the respect that existed was the secret of that team. This made Lazio great. It was impossible not to like Sinisa, he was positive, cheerful. It was a huge pleasure to work with him."

Former Lazio striker Christian Vieri added, in an Instagram post: "It's hard to find words today. Rest in peace great warrior."

Mihajlovic was sacked by Bologna in September after a disappointing start to the season, ending his second spell as head coach with the Rossoblu.

Milan great Andrea Pirlo paid his own tribute to Mihajlovic, writing: "A great man as well as being a great footballer... You have always proved to be a loyal warrior. Goodbye Sinisa."

Another former on-field adversary, Gabriel Batistuta, wrote: "How many battles on the field. Goodbye Sinisa."

Italian FA (FIGC) president Gabriele Gravina said he was "deeply saddened".

"Sinisa was a protagonist on and off the field, an example of passion, determination and courage, able to inspire and excite," Gravina added. "Mihajlovic was a true champion as a player, as a coach, but above all as a person.

"In an era often marked by falsehood, he has always known how to put the truth before him, not underlining his defects and his weaknesses."

Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis added his own salute, saying on Twitter: "A great man leaves too soon. A coach that in the past I had thought of bringing to Naples. A person of great human depth. A fighter who defied the disease with the courage of a lion."

Red Star Belgrade labelled Mihajlovic "a great star and a man with an incredible heart and strength", adding: "Our club expresses its deepest condolences to the Mihajlovic family. To him be eternal glory!"

Tonali has been linked with Serie A giants Juventus and Inter after starring for Brescia, while he made his Italy debut last year.

The 20-year-old has drawn comparisons to Italy great Pirlo, but the former Juventus and Milan star believes Tonali could be even better.

"It is said that he may be my heir, but I don't see many things in common," he told Nicolo De Devitiis during an Instagram Live chat on Monday.

"He is another type of player. He is much more complete both in the defensive phase and when he sets up. He is a mix between my characteristics and those of other players.

"He is the most promising of midfielders. He will surely become a great player."

Tonali's future has been a talking point with the Serie A season suspended since March due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Pirlo hopes the campaign can be completed, with Juve having held a one-point lead over Lazio when it was paused.

"Health comes first, then if you can finish the championship then all the better," he said.

"It won't be an easy choice. We hope it will happen. Football makes many people work, maximum safety must be guaranteed.

"If one person is infected, everything must be blocked again."

There have been more than 286,000 deaths from coronavirus worldwide, with the death toll in Italy exceeding 30,700.

It was announced at the end of August that Ibrahimovic would stay with Milan, where he had made a strong impact in a half-season spell.

His 10 goals in 18 Serie A appearances last term helped to transform a struggling side, and the veteran Swede has stepped up to new levels in 2020-21, with 10 goals in just six league games.

But it appears Ibrahimovic was up for grabs before he committed to another year with Milan, given Raiola says his client could have gone to champions Juventus.

With Andrea Pirlo freshly installed as head coach of the Turin giants, Raiola felt Ibrahimovic and Ronaldo could have been the strike combination to take Juventus to European glory.

In an interview with Tuttosport, Raiola said of Ibrahimovic: "This summer, when he was free, everyone made a mistake not to take him, including Juve.

"He would have been the ideal man to team up with Cristiano Ronaldo and go together to storm the Champions League. Putting two prima donnas together wouldn't have been a problem.

"Think, what a trio: Pirlo, Ibra and Ronaldo."

Juventus, for whom Ibrahimovic played two seasons from 2004 to 2006, last won the Champions League in 1996.

This season, they are chasing Milan's shadow in Serie A, with Ibrahimovic's goals fuelling confidence and an early-season run at the top of the table.

Milan sit five points clear of nearest rivals Inter, and six ahead of Juve.

"Deservedly. The Rossoneri are the team to beat, I say it and repeat it," Raiola said. "Zlatan is a priceless player. Always top scorer in Serie A, with two goals more than Ronaldo, despite being still injured. But now his return is imminent."

Ibrahimovic has scored at a startling rate of one goal every 52.9 minutes in Serie A this season, but Ronaldo is not far behind with one every 58.75 minutes on the pitch.

Of players to have scored more than once this season, they are first and second in the minutes-per-goal standings, with Ibrahimovic also having hit the woodwork once and Ronaldo having done so twice.

Nobody has had more touches in the opposition penalty area than Ibrahimovic (63, level with Roma's Henrikh Mkhitaryan), who has made his presence felt in devastating fashion.

Raiola added the grand claim that Ibrahimovic is "the most complete player ever in football history", boasting he possesses "the talent of Messi and the willpower of CR7 [Ronaldo]".

He said there was no rush to extend the striker's contract and speculated that a public vote for the Ballon d'Or, which is not being awarded this year because of COVID-19, would have seen Ibrahimovic come out on top.

Raiola represents a string of top-level stars, including Ibrahimovic's Milan team-mate Gianluigi Donnarumma, the 21-year-old Italy goalkeeper whose contract in San Siro is due to expire at the end of this season.

"At the moment he's with Milan, then we'll see," Raiola said.

"What is certain is that Gigio is no longer what he was four years ago and there are many who ask about him. But I'll stop here. I don't want it to become a media renewal like in the past."