Back in May 1939, Elio Ioschi was appointed Triestina manager on an interim basis three months short of his 30th birthday.

After one game in the Coppa Italia Ioschi made his league debut on May 28 against Juventus, a draw which brought his short-lived tenure in charge of the Union to an end.

He would have to wait almost a decade before returning to the dugout, taking charge of Udinese for 19 games in the second half of the 1947-48 season.

Ioschi remains the youngest manager in Serie A history, but that did not make him a trailblazer. Far from it, in fact.

Unlike West Texas in the Hollywood blockbuster featuring Javier Bardem, calcio’s upper echelon is very much a country for old men.

At the time of writing, Cesc Fabregas and Fabio Pisacane are the only managers under 40 at a Serie A club ahead of next season.

Three of the bosses in the top flight – Gian Piero Gasperini, Maurizio Sarri and Marco Baroni – are in their 60s.

The oldest manager in the Premier League at 62, David Moyes is five years younger than Gasperini and it is a similar scenario across the Bundesliga and Ligue 1, where the elder statesmen are 53-year-old Steffen Baumgart and 58-year-old Christophe Pelissier.

Of the top five European leagues, only LaLiga had an older manager than Gasperini, with 71-year-old Manuel Pellegrini still going strong at Real Betis.

The direction of travel, however, is about to change, with Parma set to appoint Carlos Cuesta as their replacement for Cristian Chivu.

Five weeks short of his 30th birthday, the Arsenal assistant boss would become Serie A’s youngest manager since the league resumed after World War II.

Just as Ioschi did 86 years ago, Cuesta could also make his debut against Juventus, when the Gialloblu travel to Turin on the opening weekend of the Serie A season on August 24.

The 29-year-old worked as youth coach with the Bianconeri and held a similar role at Atletico Madrid before joining Arteta’s staff at the Emirates in the summer of 2020.

The Arsenal manager admitted he would not stand in Cuesta’s way when he emerged as a target for Norwich in February of last year.

“You cannot do that. I wouldn’t,” Arteta said. “With the staff as well, everybody needs to feel there is a path, there is a development plan for everyone.

“People don’t want to do the same thing for three, four, five years. It is a way to incentivise and inspire other people and then to explore because you don’t really know the limit of a person unless you expose him to certain things.

“I think curiosity is a really important quality that we have within our young staff and that drives the rest. We all need opportunities.”

Cuesta, who speaks six languages, is expected to bring a style of football similar to Arteta’s to the Tardini, one predicated on possession and passing and with a focus on young players. Last season Parma had Serie A’s youngest squad at an average of just under 24.

Speaking to The Athletic last year, former Arsenal midfielder Granit Xhaka championed Cuesta as a manager-in-waiting.

“I am sure that one day he will be a manager for a big, big, big club,” he said. “He knows what he wants, he has clear ideas, and he has clear goals that he wants to achieve. I am certain that one day we will see him on the touchline as a manager.”

Intriguing as Cuesta’s appointment would be, it would also represent a major gamble for a team who narrowly avoided relegation last season.

Cristian Chivu replaced Fabio Pecchia in February and won 16 points in 13 games to keep Parma up, but he left last week to take over from Simone Inzaghi at Inter Milan.

Chivu was a curious choice himself, given he had never managed at senior level until Parma came calling.

In that respect, Cuesta would continue the pattern of rolling the dice on managers, something Kyle Krause has not been afraid of doing since acquiring the club five years ago.

The American’s first real appointment was Enzo Maresca – Krause had been in situ for months only when Roberto D’Aversa replaced Fabio Liverani halfway through the 2020-21 season – and who, like Cuesta and Chivu, had no experience of managing a club at a senior level.

Maresca was fired only four months into his tenure, returning to Manchester City where he had been a youth team coach, to serve as Pep Guardiola’s assistant. He has since gone on to manage Chelsea and won the Europa Conference League in his first season, while Chivu has been trusted with building a post-Inzaghi era at Inter.

Krause will hope Cuesta can be just as successful at Parma and upset Serie A’s old guard along the way.