Italian Fabio Cannavaro will coach Uzbekistan as they prepare for their first World Cup next year, the Central Asian nation's soccer association said on Monday, Reuters reported.

Cannavaro won the World Cup with Italy as a player, captaining his country to the title in 2006, but his record as a coach is more mixed.

His most recent job was with Dinamo Zagreb but that was a short-lived spell of less than four months that ended in April, according to Reuters.