Cannavaro guided Udinese to Serie A safety after being given five weeks to stay up. However, he then chose to reject the chance to extend his deal into the new season.
He told La Gazzetta dello Sport: "Should I have stayed? I don't know. There are no rules in football. Even the greats suffer: Mou, Allegri, Sarri. There is more competition, and if one thinks of staying still for years, as in the past, and then proposing the same ideas again, one must always study.
"I knew I had six games and I threw myself into the fire. Many couldn't wait for it to go badly, now many are wondering why I'm still not there. They are choices. Udinese are well prepared it would be a 10th/12th place team and would enhance three or four talents a year. But I'm stubborn."
Cannavaro then spoke at length about his idea of football: "I like to command, be aggressive, but it's the players who allow you to do so or not in certain situations. Today there are too many of them who execute, but don't think: we have lost our imagination and it shows all levels, including the national team.
"Football is movement, you have to think about variations, it's space-time: Sacchi said it and they thought he was talking about geography..."