Sergio Parisse exclusive: Why it’s the ‘optimal’ time for me to join Italy’s coaching team before the World Cup
Italy legend Sergio Parisse.
Italy’s greatest ever player joins Gonzalo Quesada’s backroom team as forwards coach, bringing three decades of European rugby mastery to the Azzurri’s World Cup mission.
Sergio Parisse, one of the greatest eights of all time and one of the most gifted all-round players the game has seen, has been appointed Italy’s assistant coach for forwards on a four-year contract from June 2026, with a focus on lineout play.
Parisse confirmed the appointment exclusively to Planet Rugby ahead of today’s official announcement, revealing that he, the former Italy captain, who earned 142 caps and captained the Azzurri on 94 occasions, will join head coach Gonzalo Quesada’s backroom team one and a half years before the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia.
Parisse and Quesada talks
The appointment concludes a year-long courtship between Parisse and Quesada, the Argentine who took over Italy’s helm in January 2024.
Quesada first approached Parisse at the end of 2024, but the then-lineout coach at RC Toulon felt he needed further coaching experience before committing to the role.
“I was only in my second year at Toulon,” Parisse explained. “Gonzalo had spoken to me, but I felt I needed to get a little bit more experience. Now I’ve coached for over another year, so I’ve had three years. I’m really enjoying it. I kept in contact with Gonzalo, but I also wanted to finish my contract at RC Toulon because I had such a great time there, and obviously, I played here for some time.”
The timing, Parisse believes, is now perfect. “I believe that it’s absolutely the optimal time to be joining. One and a half years out before the World Cup with a set of forwards that I think are outstanding. This is not only the closing of one chapter, but the opening of a completely new one.”
For Parisse, the move represents a deeply personal homecoming. Born in La Plata, Argentina, he moved to Italy as a teenager and committed his life to the Azzurri. At 42, having spent 21 years in France since signing for Stade Français in 2005, he finds himself drawn back to the country that shaped his rugby identity. “From my personal life point of view, I’ll be back home,” he said. “I’ve absolutely loved living in France, but Silvia, my wife, is from Rome and we want our children to also understand and enjoy their Italian heritage. We’ll be close to our wider family, and my mother is close by. I spent half my life in France. I’m 42 and I’ve been here 21 years, since 2005 with Stade Français, and it was a real personal decision to go back to Italy.”
Changing of times
What awaits him in Rome is not a rehabilitation project in the traditional sense. Under Quesada’s leadership, Italy have begun a genuine ascent. The 2026 Six Nations saw the Azzurri secure historic victories, including their first-ever win over England at the Stadio Olimpico. The squad depth is no longer a fantasy; it is now a reality.
Parisse is acutely aware of the burden he carried as a player in a struggling era. “I remember as an Italian player just how difficult it was in my time, how hard it was to keep going where there were rare rewards.
“The commitment and the passion for little- although I’ll always remember the great days like South Africa in Florence 2016. But I now feel I’m jumping into a team with huge potential, a really great opportunity for Italy to go to the next level. We have arguably our best pack in history, real quality of players from one to eight, and that’s where my focus will be, developing and nurturing those guys.”
Before committing, Parisse sought counsel from an unexpected source. He sat down at length with Gregor Townsend, Scotland’s head coach, to understand the shift from club to international rugby.
“Gregor explained to me that Test rugby is a different game from a coach’s lens,” Parisse recalled. “He reminded me you have a lot more time to think about things. You’re coaching ten to twelve games a year as opposed to twenty-eight to thirty-six in the Top 14.
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“So you really have time to develop your own learning and the learning of the players around you. You need a lot more detail, and it’s very much about quality over quantity, something that appeals to me. I have always obsessed over skill and mental detail, and this gives me a chance to develop that further. It’ll be very full on, very intense, but throughout my career, I’ve always been somebody that wanted to improve my knowledge and really wanted to understand.”
The forwards Parisse will coach represent the foundation of Quesada’s ambition. His specialist area is the back row, and the players available to him read like a masterclass in contemporary Italian rugby: Michele Lamaro, Ross Vintcent, Manuel Zuliani, Niccolò Cannone and Sebastian Negri. “All five are absolutely top quality internationals,” Parisse noted.
But the depth extends far deeper than the established guard. The 2026 Six Nations unveiled a generation of emerging talent: Lorenzo Pani at fullback, Leonardo Marin at centre when Nacho Brex was unavailable for personal reasons.
“It shows that Italy really have depth,” Parisse said. “They’re no longer a team that just has a good first fifteen and nothing underneath. They have real depth underneath.”
Louis Lynagh and Monty Ioane are two further examples of that emerging quality. Underneath them, young wingers Edoardo Todaro and Malik Faissal, who is currently with Zebre but has signed with Northampton Saints, exemplify the calibre of player emerging from Italy’s academies. “These are all absolutely fantastic players and people I’m really looking forward to working with,” Parisse said.
Uniquely qualified
Parisse’s quadrilingual fluency (Italian, French, Spanish and English), combined with his relationships across European club rugby and his intimate understanding of the Top 14 system from which many of Italy’s frontline players are drawn, make him a uniquely qualified appointment. His lineout expertise, developed over two decades as one of the finest operators in the position, will provide immediate technical direction to a forward pack hungry for European success.
Leaving RC Toulon will carry emotional weight. “I’m grateful, and I feel so blessed for the new opportunity, but it will be sad for me to say ciao to the Mayol,” he acknowledged.
“I’ve had an amazing time there.” Yet his gaze is now fixed on Australia 2027 and the chance to build something transformative. “I believe that Italy have a chance to make a real mark in the 2027 Rugby World Cup, and this is where my heart belongs. I myself played 142 times for Italy and captained them 94 times. Now I’m ready to serve in a different way and that starts with our Test versus Japan in June.”
For now, however, Parisse’s focus remains entirely on Toulon’s immediate future. The EPCR Champions Cup quarter-final against Glasgow Warriors this weekend demands his full attention. “Obviously, we play Glasgow this weekend in the quarter-final of the Champions Cup,” he said. “And, as somebody that’s had success in Europe, it would be lovely just to continue the journey with Toulon and the players I’ve known so well both sides of the whitewash, so all my focus at the moment is on Saturday, despite the announcement today.”
It is a fitting coda to an extraordinary period and domestic career. Parisse departs Toulon having won the European Challenge Cup in 2023 and having established himself as one of the club’s most influential voices in the coaching box. His departure will sadden many on the French Riviera. But for Italian rugby, it represents something far greater: the return of its greatest son, at precisely the moment when the national team is ready to be remade in his image.
The homecoming awaits. But, for now, there is still European business to finish.
