Andrea Pirlo
#71
Like they say he's like a bottle of wine, it only gets better by age Tongue
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#72
Except that this bottle of wine turns into vinegar. So sour. :p
aka xudong
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#73
His freekicks might be better (I'm not sure, let's not forget that defending in Italy has progressively gotten worse), but overall as a player his best years were in Milan without a doubt. Between 2003 and 2006 (maybe 2007), he was simply unsurpassed as a regista.
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#74
Some interesting comments from Brocchi on Pirlo leaving Milan...

http://www.milannews.it/le-interviste/br...lan-143829
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#75
I got Pirlo's autobiography yesterday and read the first few pages, which were really interesting, as the hate he's gotten from the articles published by the press are maybe a little unwarranted if you look at it from his perspective.

Firstly, what I really felt in those first few pages was how disappointed he felt when leaving Milan. While both he and the club seemed to implicitly agree that a change was needed, the way it was done is very strange. Apparently the meeting barely lasted 30 minutes and Pirlo's view seems to be that Galliani's view was kind of dismissive, kind of as though he was going through the routine of suggesting he can stay rather than really wanting it.

Given how short it was and the general feeling from what's been said about the meeting, I think it's probably safe to assume that while Pirlo wanted to play in front of defence and wasn't going to accept a 1 year contract, the club showed little desire to really continue building around him. I'm not saying one is right or wrong, just that really the feeling is that both thought it was time to change (for better or worse).

More interesting was the aftermath of the meeting. Apparently Inter were very interested in Pirlo, but he rejected. Partly because they were slow to go for him, but he says he wouldn't have gone for it for Milan fans, who he shared 10 years with, 9 which he considered great and the last which was full of injuries. He mentions his relationship with fans as well which was interesting, in that he felt that what he was doing on the pitch wasn't necessarily valued by the fans as much as in the past (he's right, as many were very critical of him towards the end of his career with Milan). Not in a bitter way, but as he put it, it was maybe time that the fans wanted to see new stories being written and a new face for the panini book.

What really struck me about what he wrote about leaving was actually how many emotions he went through when leaving. He described Milan as it's own world and on leaving he admits to pretty much bawling his eyes out due to the emotions. Also very interesting was when he told Nesta (the first he told outside of family and his closest friend at the club) he was leaving. Apparently, Nesta's response wasn't too much of shock and it was something like "it's best this way". I think that generation knew things were changing and they were coming to the end.

Certainly I think reading the full story gives more insight in Pirlo's view and it's less betrayal than many may have felt. This is all just from a couple of minutes reading the first few pages, I can't wait to read it fully. I'll try to let everyone know if it's good when I read it properly.
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#76
I'm guessing there's not much interest in Pirlo these days, but for those who might be interested I finally got to start his book proper yesterday and read about 5 chapters. I thought it might be interesting to say that he's clearly very bitter in the way he left Milan and it got to the point where by the time I finished reading that last chapter, I was wondering whether he genuinely hated Milan. His comments weren't positive and it wasn't an easy read.

At this point I just got really confused about his attitude and so had a quick browse through the book to see other parts related to Milan, because I just couldn't believe that a guy who spent 10 years at the club would hate it so much. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that in Italy it's hard to see Pirlo feeling any personal affinity to any particular club. He loves the Italian national team more than anything, that's obvious, while he openly admits that since he was a kid he always dreamed of wearing the shirt of Real or especially Barca (and came very close too).

Ultimately though, he seems to be a person who cares more about the people he worked with more than any club or shirt. He writes about his personal relationship with individuals like Rino, Nesta, Abbiati and Oddo in Milan, how Ancelotti was a father figure and his admiration of Maldini (who he called the greatest) and Costacurta, while his comments on Terim were honestly hilarious. He also talks about Silvio Berlusconi (effectively confirming why Berlu is such a good/successful club owner). Interesting is he appears to have no respect or love for Galliani, who he says doesn't see eye to eye with Maldini (actually related to contract issues) and by this point in the book was referring to as "the pen guy" or "bic man".

Reading all this really made me think. Galliani in all honesty seems to be an absolute ***hole (when all things are considered). Maldini is a guy I'd absolutely love to meet and get to know. They often say you shouldn't meet your heroes in person because they never live up to the legend, but in Maldini's case, no one ever says otherwise.

Finally, a lot of recent events, this book included, makes you wonder about the whole "club is bigger than the player" comments we always make. I'm not saying the players are more important, but ultimately the conclusion I've come to is that we value the shirt, but the club is made up of the people in it, for their sporting, but more importantly, human qualities. In that respect I have to admit that this book is making me think a lot.
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#77
It's funny that Galliani seems to make these mediocre players so happy with long useless contracts, but when it comes down to world class players leaving or our former legends, they all hate him Big Grin
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#78
I am also enjoying the book, well this part not so much about that night in Istanbul in 2005 and how it affected the players after, makes you realize they went thru the same emotions we fans did although at the time we felt we were alone in it, while they also were going thru the same stages after, if not harder.

The bit about Terim and his translator is hilarious , ACMILAN1983 summed it up all really nicely, one thing I wanna add about Galliani and the preaching about Milan being a family, really doesn't seem like it, not just because of what happened with Pirlo but also Galliani vs Maldini and how he only wanted to give him a one year contract extension at the time, a player like Maldini a stellar of our club and history and now dolling out big and long contracts to useless players whom we don't need to begin with. Really making me questions things even more.
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#79
Lol, what about Terim and his translator?
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#80
To summarise, Terim was a bit nuts, in that Pirlo suggested he'd go out of his way to break rules (e.g. he was the kind of guy to leave a club event to go watch Big Brother). As for his translator, Pirlo basically says Terim would talk for about 5 minutes saying in detail how he wants the play to go through Pirlo, then the translator would say "pass to Pirlo".

There's some great stuff in there about how Terim would have boards with the team and circles representing players on the pitch, but he'd get it mixed up and start saying the attackers were defenders and vice versa (making the side a 2 defence formation with 4 attackers, which might explain the defending of that side).

It's a great read, made me laugh out loud.
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