Pirlo names the best manager he worked with

Pirlo worked with Conte for three years at Juventus and two with the Italian national side and picked the Chelsea chief as the best manager he had the pleasure of working with, despite also hailing Carlo Mazzone and Carlo Ancelotti.

"I worked with some amazing managers during my career," he told 'Vanity Fair'. "Mazzone changed my position on the pitch, it's thanks to him that I became a 'regista' (A deep lying playmaker).

"Ancelotti is like a brother to me but Conte is the best one. I was lucky enough to meet him in 2011 and he has really taught me a lot."

Meanwhile, the 38-year-old also revealed an amusing anecdote from when he played under Roy Hodgson, explaining that the former England boss used to call him an 'idiot' by accident.

"Hodgson? He used to call me 'Pirla'," he recalled, Pirla meaning 'idiot' in Pirlo's native region of Lombardy.

"He didn't do it on purpose. It was a problem of language, he didn't know Italian very well."