Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri has said he advised Andrea Barzagli to switch from midfield to defence when the pair played together in Italy's third division.

Allegri and Barzagli were teammates at Pistoiese in 2000 when Allegri noticed that his colleague was not playing to his strengths.

"I was approaching the end of my career so I was practically a former player already while he was only starting and he was playing in midfield," Allegri told Sky Sport Italia.

"I told him that if he carried on playing that way, he would never have played higher than the third division.

"I said that if he wanted a different kind of career, he needed to change -- he needed to drop back 15 metres."

Barzagli, 36, went on to star for Ascoli, Chievo, Palermo and Wolfsburg before joining Juventus in 2011.

Allegri, meanwhile, ended his playing days in 2003 before coaching Aglianese, Ars et Labor, Grosseto, Lecco, Sassuolo and Cagliari.

He joined AC Milan in 2010 and led them to the title, recalling: "I told [president Silvio] Berlusconi that if he bought me [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic we would win the Scudetto, and so it proved.

"I'm grateful to Berlusconi and [Adriano] Galliani, who took me from Cagliari and gave me the opportunity to coach Milan.

"In my second year, some players were ending their careers and we struggled, but overall it was four magnificent years.

"In the first two years, I coached a team of champions which I would have liked to have coached for six or seven years."