Andrea Pirlo was a Rare Talent – a Winner, Dreamer Who Oozed Creative Cool

 Andrea Pirlo was good enough to play for both Milan and Juventus and remain loved by both sets of fans. Photograph: Marco Bertorello/AFP/Getty Images
Andrea Pirlo was good enough to play for both Milan and Juventus and remain loved by both sets of fans. Photograph: Marco Bertorello/AFP/Getty Images
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Andrea Pirlo was a Rare Talent – a Winner, Dreamer Who Oozed Creative Cool

 Andrea Pirlo was good enough to play for both Milan and Juventus and remain loved by both sets of fans. Photograph: Marco Bertorello/AFP/Getty Images
Andrea Pirlo was good enough to play for both Milan and Juventus and remain loved by both sets of fans. Photograph: Marco Bertorello/AFP/Getty Images

Andrea Pirlo loved to pull pranks on Gennaro Gattuso. The two midfielders played together for more than a decade with Milan and Italy, winning everything from Serie A to the World Cup and Champions League. They became fast friends, but that did not stop Pirlo from stealing Gattuso’s phone one day and texting his agent, offering his sister in return for an improved contract.

It was not the practical jokes, though, that tormented Gattuso the most. Harder to cope with were the existential crises provoked by training alongside such outlandish talent. As he mused on one occasion: “When I watch Pirlo play, and see him with the ball at his feet, I ask myself if I could even truly be considered a footballer at all.”

Pirlo himself is not a footballer any longer. He confirmed his retirement on social media after New York City FC, the club with whom he has passed the final two and a-half years of his career, were eliminated from the MLS playoffs.

Six months after Francesco Totti’s curtain call, Italian football bids farewell to another of its most iconic stars. While the Roma forward was a one-club man, Pirlo was almost the opposite: that rare example of someone who swapped between great rivals without losing the affection of either. They still love him in Milan, just like they do in Turin. And just about everywhere else in the world besides.

Looking back, it is hard to pinpoint precisely when Pirlo transcended from domestic darling to global brand: a face that launched a thousand memes. Was it the 2006 World Cup win, or perhaps the Panenka to deceive Joe Hart at Euro 2012? Was it the autobiography, translated to English and laced with expletives? Was it just the vineyard and the beard?

What we know is that somewhere along the line he achieved that highest form of footballing recognition: the stage at which a player’s name becomes synonymous with their position. The ‘Pirlo role’ is understood worldwide as the one in which he did his best work: sitting in the pocket in front of the defence, picking out passes like an NFL quarterback.

It is easy to forget that this was not always his position. Pirlo had been identified as a special talent long before he broke through into the first team at Brescia in 1994, but back then he was a No10. Only after a difficult spell at Inter did he return on loan to his first club, who by this point had Roberto Baggio on their books.

The manager, Carlo Mazzone, moved Pirlo back into midfield as a means of getting both players into his starting XI. Even today, Baggio cites his favourite goal as one that he scored for Brescia against Juventus in 2001 – set up by a 35-yard Pirlo pass over the top of the defence.

How many other players have Pirlo to thank for the most memorable strike of their careers? Fabio Grosso, certainly, whose extra-time winner against Germany in the semi-final of the 2006 World Cup was made possible by a scandalously cool no-look pass.

That nonchalance was part of the appeal, Pirlo’s majestic technique was only enhanced by the cool he exuded in the most high-pressure moments of his career. It was, in some degree, a façade, Pirlo acknowledging in his autobiography that he has a talent for keeping his emotions hidden. But he also admitted in the same book that he never relished running for running’s sake.

“One part of my job I’ll never learn to love is the pre-match warm-up,” wrote Pirlo. “I hate it with every fibre of my being. It actually disgusts me. It’s nothing but masturbation for conditioning coaches, their way of enjoying themselves at the players’ expense.”

That is one thing he will not miss, and there was an admirable frankness in the manner that he pre-announced his retirement during an interview with Gazzetta, explaining that, at 38 years old, the strain of maintaining match fitness had become too much. “You realise your moment has come,” he said. “Every day you have physical problems, you can’t train because you always have some ailment. At my age, it’s OK, to say, ‘that’s enough’.”

It is not as though he still had anything left to prove. He wept on the pitch after losing the Champions League final with Juventus in 2015, but unlike most of his team-mates he had already lifted the big-eared trophy twice.

With a Club World Cup and two Uefa Super Cups in his collection, Pirlo has raised just about every major trophy available to him. And yet you wonder if any of them mean more to him than the lifelong dream he fulfilled by playing at the Maracanã for Italy in the 2013 Confederations Cup. The free-kick he scored that day took a personal fantasy beyond anything that even his childhood self had dared to imagine.

Pirlo is a ferocious competitor who never hides from the bitterness he felt in defeat. But he is also an aesthete, and a dreamer. He was good enough to have it both ways.

You can understand why it all seemed a little unreasonable to a man like Gattuso, a man who built a very fine career out of more mundane gifts. Not everyone, though, is so intimidated by brilliance. The most eloquent tribute might be the one delivered by Gigi Buffon, quite possibly the best-ever to play his own position, after Pirlo arrived at Juventus in 2011.

“When I saw him playing,” said Buffon. “I thought to myself, ‘God exists’.”

Five memorable Pirlo moments:

1) Assist for Fabio Grosso, 2006 World Cup semi-final

A brilliant semi-final was headed for penalties until Pirlo unpicked the German defence with a no-look pass that freed Fabio Grosso to break the deadlock. It was Pirlo whose shot had forced the corner from which this move began, too.

2) An accidental assist for Pippo Inzaghi, 2007 Champions League final

Pirlo has hit more aesthetically satisfying free-kicks, but perhaps never one more important. Milan had exceeded expectations to make the final, and still bore the scars of their defeat to Liverpool in Istanbul two years earlier. When the ball deflected in off Pippo Inzaghi’s shoulder, they started to believe this might be their night.

3) A piledriver against Parma in 2010

It was not just set-pieces from which Pirlo could be deadly. The goal he scored against Parma in October 2010 was simply astonishing, hit from close to 40 yards and still rising as it hit the top corner of the net.

4) Penalty against England, Euro 2012 quarter-final

Italy were 2-1 down in the shoot-out when Pirlo stepped up, with Riccardo Montolivo having missed their preceding kick. Pirlo’s calm Panenka make a mockery of Joe Hart’s intimidation attempts, and shifted the pressure back to England, who duly fluffed their next two penalties and crashed out.

5) Free-kick at the Maracanã, 2013 Confederations Cup

Pirlo had dreamed of playing at the Maracanã as a boy. He had had not dared to imagine that he might do so on the occasion of his 100th Italy cap, and mark it with a tremendous free-kick goal that set Italy on the way to victory over Mexico.

The Guardian Sport



Alcaraz Resists Rublev to Reach Wimbledon Quarter-finals

Spain's Carlos Alcaraz celebrates winning a game against Russia's Andrey Rublev during their men's singles fourth round tennis match on the seventh day of the 2025 Wimbledon Championships at The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, southwest London, on July 6, 2025. (Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP)
Spain's Carlos Alcaraz celebrates winning a game against Russia's Andrey Rublev during their men's singles fourth round tennis match on the seventh day of the 2025 Wimbledon Championships at The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, southwest London, on July 6, 2025. (Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP)
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Alcaraz Resists Rublev to Reach Wimbledon Quarter-finals

Spain's Carlos Alcaraz celebrates winning a game against Russia's Andrey Rublev during their men's singles fourth round tennis match on the seventh day of the 2025 Wimbledon Championships at The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, southwest London, on July 6, 2025. (Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP)
Spain's Carlos Alcaraz celebrates winning a game against Russia's Andrey Rublev during their men's singles fourth round tennis match on the seventh day of the 2025 Wimbledon Championships at The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, southwest London, on July 6, 2025. (Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP)

Carlos Alcaraz came through a ferocious fourth-round firefight against a red-hot Andrey Rublev to win 6-7(5) 6-3 6-4 6-4 on Centre Court and keep his bid for a third successive Wimbledon title on track on Sunday.

The Spanish second seed stuttered in his opening three rounds but found his best form to eventually subdue an inspired opponent who once again came up short against the very best, Reuters reported.

Rublev rocked Alcaraz by roaring into a 4-1 lead only to be pegged back but the Russian produced some astonishing tennis to snatch the tiebreak and move ahead.

Alcaraz never looked ruffled though and levelled the match after Rublev double-faulted on a break point. Rublev continued throwing everything in his arsenal at the champion in the third set but paid for not taking some early break points as Alcaraz found another gear.

Alcaraz looked impregnable in the fourth set and a single break of serve was enough to seal a 22nd successive match win and set up a last-eight clash with Britain's Cameron Norrie.

"Andrey is one of the most powerful players we have on Tour and is so aggressive with the ball. It's really difficult to face him, he forces you to the limit on each point," Alcaraz, bidding to become only the fourth man to win back-to-back French Open and Wimbledon titles multiple times, said on court.

"Really happy with the way I moved and played intelligent and smart tactically. A really good match all round."

With so many seeds having fallen early, this was the first match between top-20 players in the men's singles this year and it did not disappoint as the quality scaled rare heights.

Rublev, 27, has barely been outside of the top 10 since 2022 but has never got close to winning a Grand Slam, losing all 10 quarter-finals that he has contested.

The 14th seed must have sighed when he saw Alcaraz in his way in the fourth round, but he came out in positive fashion, off-loading rockets at the five-time Grand Slam champion.

With the roof closed after earlier thunderstorms the noise of the ball striking strings sounded like rifle shots.

Rublev hit harder, then harder still and at 5-5 in the opening set launched an outrageous backhand winner off a full-blooded Alcaraz forehand and then followed with a powerful forehand of his own to the baseline to move a set ahead.

He barely did anything wrong after that but Alcaraz, finally clicking into gear after three scratchy wins, showed why taking the title off him will be such a tough task.

The turning point came at 3-3 in the third set when Rublev, attempting to save a break point, sent Alcaraz sliding from side to side with a barrage of power only for the Spaniard to whip a forehand cross court winner, before cupping his ear to the crowd who rose as one to salute the moment of genius.

Rublev stuck manfully to his task but he was powerless to prevent an 11th loss from 11 matches against top-five opponents at a Grand Slam.