Maurizio Sarri will have entered Saturday evening asking just what Andrea Pirlo offers in comparison to him having been sacked as Juventus boss.
The Italian champions wasted no time in axing Sarri, who still had two years left to run on his deal in Turin, after their shock elimination in the Champions League to Lyon on Friday night.
For a start, Pirlo boasts far better hair. But on a more serious note, Pirlo will not need to learn or develop Juventus' DNA having spent four years anchoring the Bianconeri's midfield. He gets what the club is about and that's vitally important.
Ultimately, Sarri just never quite got it and for that he paid the price.
The appointment of Sarri always felt off from the start, something just did not seem to fit together.
Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli comes across as a man who wants what others have, someone who more often than not is of the belief that the grass can always be that little bit greener.
And despite them clinching an eighth-straight Serie A title, delivered by Massimiliano Allegri last year, Agnelli craved more aesthetic and attractive football to watch and to dazzle the rest of Europe with.
With great difficulty in attaining Pep Guardiola, Agnelli's mind was cast to the eye-catching 'Sarri-ball' that was delivered at Napoli in the 2017-18 season.
Sarri moved to Chelsea that summer for one season before Agnelli could get his hands on a man that was a major detachment from the clean-cut, company man that Allegri came across as.
There he would be, his side toiling against Sassuolo, Atalanta, Cagliari, Roma, Lazio, pick any side this season, with a cigarette butt dangling precariously in his mouth. It felt almost metaphorical for how precarious his job at the Allianz Stadium was and so it proved.
There was a belief that his system simply didn't work in English football - even after he delivered Chelsea the Europa League - and so back in Italy it was expected his career would be back on track.
Only what transpired was a tumultuous campaign that saw his tactics questioned, whispers of fall-outs with key dressing room figures and he was even the target of social media rants from Cristiano Ronaldo's sister.
Sarri and his story of being a banker before throwing himself into football management is one well told. It is remarkable to have gone ahead and had the career he has given he started with a role managing eighth-division side USD Stia in 1990.
Slowly this unfamiliar, introverted, chain-smoking manager was beginning to get on the radar of those high up in Italian football.
His resume makes incredible reading when it is acknowledge that in 30 years he has gone from Faellese to Cavriglia, Antella, Valdema, Tegoleto, Sansovino, Sangiovannese, Pescara, Arezzo, Avellino, Hellas Verona, Perugia, Grosseto, Alessandria, Sorrento and Empoli where he really drew credit for the now-derided 'Sarri-ball'.
And then his story becomes more high-profile: Napoli, Chelsea and Juventus.
While the fall-out from his one-and-done season in Turin is still to be properly unpacked, the question now is, what next? Is his time as a league-winning manager over?
The one thing that was consistently levelled against Sarri was that his football, while easy on the eye when it works, does not, or had not, delivered tangible trophy success.
He did win the title this season, Juventus' ninth Scudetto in a row, and so he can no longer be ridiculed for not winning in his own country.
'If you won with me, you must be good,' he joked in the dressing room after clinching the league title. It was said in jest but there was an element of truth to it; it was all alien and the players knew it.
There was some rumours of Roma being his next landing spot with some pressure on Paulo Fonseca in the Italian capital. For now that seems a stretch.
But with no appetite to welcome him back to England with open arms and the only way in Italy is down, Sarri has a lot to think about before putting himself back in the firing line.
What made Sarri so attractive and unique was it was not all about trophies. Underdog teams thrived under him because it was more about philosophy, footballing beliefs and schooling opponents by simply out-performing them.
And so that is key for the next move. Sarri needs to turn his back on the glitz, glamour and champagne lifestyle that clings to the European elite.
To get his love for the game back, Sarri needs to find a home that inspires him as much as minor side Tegoleto did when he gave up that career in the bank.