(Bloomberg) -- Juventus named former player Andrea Pirlo as head coach, replacing Maurizio Sarri who was fired after Italy's most successful soccer team suffered a shock exit from Europe's Champions League.
Pirlo, 41, has been running the club's Under-23 team and signed a two-year deal, Juventus Football Club SpA said in a statement Saturday. In a playing career that included four years in Juve's midfield, he won the sport's biggest trophies -- the Champions League and in 2006, the World Cup.
The club said it thanked Sarri “for having written a new page in Juventus's history” after the team secured a ninth consecutive title in Italy's Serie A championship. The victory was “the culmination of a personal journey that led him to climb all the divisions of Italian football,” it said.
Juve was eliminated from Europe's most prestigious tournament by France's Lyon, one of the continent's lesser lights. It was Juve's first exit from the round-of-16 stage since 2010.
After the match, Chairman Andrea Agnelli said the Champions League title “was a dream before, now it's an objective.” He also said he expects Cristiano Ronaldo, who scored both Juve goals in Thursday's match, will stay at the club.
Read more: Ronaldo's Juventus Cuts Salary of Players as Virus Halts Games
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