Perhaps Allegri’s are a sign that he misses soccer, then. Perhaps, a few months after his five years as Juventus manager drew to a close, they reflect his yearning to get back to designing game plans, to plotting victories, to celebrating titles. (Quite how the words “gol,” “dip,” “iron” and “German,” written in block capitals and connected by a single thread, fit into this requires further examination.)

Image Artwork by Massimiliano Allegri. Credit... Rory Smith/The New York Times

Spend a little time in his company, though, and that is not the impression he gives. These last six months have been Allegri’s first break from soccer in 34 years: 18 as a rather better midfielder than he gives himself credit for — “I was a mediocre player,” he says, wrongly — and 16 as a coach, an Italian champion once with A.C. Milan and five times with Juventus.

It has become de rigueur, of course, for elite coaches to take sabbatical years, ever since Pep Guardiola declared himself so burned out after four seasons at Barcelona that he took himself off to New York for a year to refresh and recharge.

Allegri does not regard himself as being on sabbatical, though. That would suggest that he had become too consumed by his job, by his sport, by his ideas. He is just having “a break,” one that he feels he deserves, plain and simple.

He has not spent it traveling around Europe, watching training sessions, tracking his rivals or prospective employers, refining his thoughts. Where Guardiola took time off because he felt burned out, because he was too committed to soccer to keep on going, Allegri just has other interests.