Andrea Pirlo's vineyard is not a reason to think he will be a vintage manager

“And what exactly are your qualifications for this position, Mr Pirlo?” “I played 119 league games for the club and won four league titles.” “I see. Any coaching qualifications?” “I signed up to do my pro licence last August.” “Right. Any relevant experience?” “I’m Juventus Under-23s coach.” “Great. And how long have you held that position?” “Nine days.” “And results are good?” “We haven’t actually played any games yet.” “But the training sessions are going well?” “Well, I did go to watch the under-19s play Monza last week.” “Excellent. The job’s yours.”

The world of the super-clubs can seem very odd at times. Football is an industry obsessed with money and status and yet also one when a company with annual revenues of £400m will appoint somebody with zero relevant experience to a key managerial role.

Related: Juventus appoint Andrea Pirlo manager following Maurizio Sarri's sacking

The idea of Andrea Pirlo as Juventus manager is seductive. He projects an aura of style and confidence. From the photographs of him sitting moodily bearded in his vineyard, you know his wines will be richly subtle, complex with an alluring hint of danger. Perhaps his football will be as well, but there is no way of knowing. This is a gamble, a wild punt on a narrative dream. Yet it is also something grotesquely commercial.

It’s easy to see the appeal. Everybody wants to believe they are unique and that only insiders can truly understand them. Everybody wants to be led to glory by one of their own. Everybody wants a Pep Guardiola.

Guardiola at Barcelona was a unique example of a coach who was the walking embodiment of his club’s sense of self. He was a product of La Masia, he believed in and extended the ideals of La Masia and he won the Champions League final in his first season with a starting lineup that included seven products of La Masia.

The language used of him was often quasi-religious. He said he was merely maintaining the cathedral that Johan Cruyff had built. But he was not some heaven‑sent messiah. He was a highly intelligent and driven footballer who had spent the latter years of his career preparing himself to be a coach, experiencing a very different football culture in Italy; working with his guru Juanma Lillo, now his assistant at Manchester City, in Mexico; and travelling the world to talk to coaching greats.

Barça appointed him after a strikingly successful season in charge of their B team. The evidence that he would be a coaching great was limited, but it was there.

Zinedine Zidane is far less concerned with theory than Guardiola but he had at least served his time with Castilla, Real Madrid’s B team, albeit with no great success. Manchester United turned to Ole Gunnar Solskjær initially because he was a cheery club legend who was the antithesis of José Mourinho, but he had had success in Norway with Molde and a rather less happy experience with Cardiff. Chelsea would not have turned to Frank Lampard had it not been for his 13 years as a player at the club but he had taken Derby into the Championship play-offs.

Pirlo has a vineyard.

It’s fair to say that from his autobiography he doesn’t come across as a natural coach. “I wouldn’t bet a single cent on me becoming a manager,” he wrote. “It’s not a job I’m attracted to. There are too many worries and the lifestyle is far too close to that of a player. I’ve done my bit and, in the future, I’d like to get back even a semblance of a private life.”

That was written seven years ago and it’s not unreasonable that a player should weary of the routine, take a break and then decide he wants to return as a coach.

But there are other details that raise doubts. He speaks, for instance, of hating warm-ups “with every fibre of my being. It actually disgusts me. It’s nothing but masturbation for conditioning coaches … I’ve absolutely no interest in jogging to warm up my muscles. The muscle that counts most is the heart and mine’s always set at 100 degrees.”

But the issue here is not Pirlo; it’s Juventus and why they should turn to a candidate with no relevant experience. This is their third major gamble in two years. First there was the €100m, plus bonuses, plus solidarity payments, plus €31m‑a‑year wages splurged on the then 33-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo in the belief his goals would bring the Champions League. Then last summer there was the dismissal of Max Allegri despite five successive league titles and the appointment of Maurizio Sarri, apparently to introduce a modern, fluent style of football. And perhaps that would have made them more likely to win the Champions League had the expenditure on Ronaldo not meant cost-cutting elsewhere, and had the essentially static presence of Ronaldo not gummed the mechanisms.

Related: Juventus sack Maurizio Sarri after Champions League exit to Lyon

Given the board apparently wants two incompatible things – fluid football and Ronaldo – that no existing coach could possibly achieve, why not turn to a coach who doesn’t yet exist? Particularly when that coach is stylish and marketable in a way the chain‑smoking sixtysomething grouch he replaces could never be.

After all, bored of just winning Serie A every season, Juve these days are quite open that – like other super-clubs – they are selling an identity or a lifestyle. When they launched their new badge three years ago they spoke of going “beyond football”, of trying to “market… to people who are not necessarily interested in sport”.

Signing Ronaldo was at least in part motivated by marketing. Pirlo’s value is less his coaching ability than his image. Even the obsession with landing the Champions League for the first time since 1996 often feels less a quest for a sporting grail than a means of improving global market share.

Pirlo may be a great success but if he is, it will have had little to do with planning. His appointment may be a romantic whim or it may be a brand manager’s dream – it may even be that in a world where everything is saleable, a romantic whim is a brand manager’s dream – but it is not a rational decision.