Barzagli: “Nobody at Juventus can lay solid foundations. Three changes of management, but there are still no foundations. There is talent in Italy, but no generational talent”

"Football has changed, and the role of the defender is changing too: more is asked of them in build-up play, in a much faster game. The basic grounding a defender used to have no longer exists. There used to be more work on specific details, on extremely tedious things that take up time and are mentally draining".

"We're missing a great talent, a generational one. But we have good players and a group of good lads who fight and try to make the step up, putting in a huge amount of effort. They also have great qualities; we're in the process of our first year.

Abroad, they take it for granted that at 18 to 20 you're already playing in the first team. We're a bit slower, but it's always been that way. It takes courage to wait for them to develop, even as they make mistakes. A new Barzagli? No, everyone is different."

"The meeting with Allegri in Pistoia? We were at a stage where I was just starting out and he was finishing. I never asked Bepi Pillon if it was true!

Conte, Allegri and Sarri are completely different. Three people passionate about football and incredibly hard-working, with a tremendous winning mentality. They have different visions and different ways of managing things, both with the group and in terms of information and communication, internally with the directors and externally too.

Now it is essential to keep an eye on everyone and everything: what you say is read and heard first and foremost by the players, who always go and read the interviews. For better or worse, they all do it. And then you send messages to the directors, the fans and, above all, the press. Different approaches and personalities, but three important managers"

"I had four wonderful years at Palermo, which helped me mature a great deal. I arrived with the mindset of a boy, a young lad. I won't deny that I enjoyed myself too. From what I see now, today's youngsters seem more professional than we were in my day.

I lived in Mondello; in football terms, they were intense years. Especially the first few: I've been to plenty of stadiums, and in terms of noise levels I think the Barbera is one of the most incredible. I took on the responsibility of wanting to become captain at 27, but I wasn't ready and I have to say I even went through a crisis. It was all part of the experience"

"The year after winning the Bundesliga with Wolfsburg was not easy. I was even left out of the squad. Then came this stroke of luck, as I call it: Paratici arrived at Juventus, and he used to come and watch me at Wolfsburg. When they told me about Juventus, I wanted to go straight away. I knew it would be my last chance. I had expected a big club to come in for me after the 2006 World Cup, and perhaps that bothered me. At 29, I had the opportunity to join a big team, and I went there as a mature man and a professional."

"Something developed there, perhaps because we all shared the same mentality. That includes Gigi Buffon behind us, who gets angry if you don't mention him. We had an incredible understanding on the pitch without ever saying anything to each other: just a glance.

Every year we started again aiming to do something more, pushing each other, and that was probably Juventus' real good fortune. The mentality was to achieve the objective; the desire was to take each other's place and raise the level even further. Sometimes foreign players arrive and are a little more distant, but they were really important for that Juventus side.

"For years, Juve have faced difficult changes. We're on our third management team. The good thing would be to achieve an important result with a group that has perhaps been together for a few years and can lay a foundation.

In all these years, nobody has managed to lay that foundation to start again and create the Juve of old. Not necessarily my Juve, mind you, but there have been Juventus sides with strong foundations, who built themselves up and then built from there. I see them trying to do something every year, and they're not succeeding."

"What wine would you pair with footballers? Yildiz? A champagne, lovely and fresh and sparkling, that can age. Pio Esposito is a young man who has really impressed me with the way he thinks. He doesn't seem like a 20-year-old. He's already very mature, so I'd choose a fine Italian Barolo. Or a Brunello di Montalcino, two great wines. Mbappè is hugely talented and French, so a Burgundy, a wine of great excellence. For Cristiano Ronaldo it would be easy to say a 1950 Porto, wouldn't it? We're talking about the very highest level: Bordeaux. Chiellini? Giorgione, given that he's from Livorno, I'd pair him with a fine Bolgheri. Known around the world and from his area"