Andrea Pirlo

Can some one tell me, how many games did he start for Inter? and how much we paid for him? Was he free?

Cant wait to watch that video.

if he can hit the goalpost 5 times in a row... why are most of his FKs not even on target?

I doubt he hit the crossbar with a wall of jumping players in front of him.

Originally Posted by Milancelotti

Can some one tell me, how many games did he start for Inter? and how much we paid for him? Was he free?

Cant wait to watch that video.

he's played 22 Serie A games for Inter, over two spells at the club, and 5 more games for Coppa Italia (from the official site)
No, he was not free as I believe we paid them 10-12 mil for him back in 2001

but if he has that accuracy... a wall of jumpin' defenders will mean nothin'... he hit it 5 times in a row... not 5 times from 10 attempts...

Originally Posted by Milancelotti

Can some one tell me, how many games did he start for Inter? and how much we paid for him? Was he free?

Cant wait to watch that video.

For Inter he played on 34 matches ( 22 in serie A, 5 in Coppa Italia and 7 in European cups).
He scored 0 goals on these 34 matches.
If your question is on how many of these 34 matches he was in starting XI then i'll have to check the reports from all these 34 matches ( i'll do it )

Milan payed 11.23 m Pounds for him (16.8 m Eur) but at the time he was bought, this was like peanuts. The market went crazy back then, and these 16.8 m Eur Milan payed for Pirlo is something like 7-8 m Eur today !

For example , in the same year Milan bought Rui Costa for 42 m Eur , Kaladze for 16.5 m Eur and Inzaghi for 25.5 m Eur

the people in front of him are quite a distraction as they are all jumping, waiving hands and also to a great extent "hide" the frame of the goal from the player taking the free kick and don't leave him a clear view on the target.
Also, the mental pressure during a game is dif from the relaxed atmosphere on the training ground.

I am sure that there are a number of technically gifted players out there, who could do what Pirlo has done, in a training session ... but once they take the field, it's a dif story altogether and they often mess up even the simplest of tasks.
I have watched Milan train and have seen with my own eyes how dif a training session is from a real-life, quick-paced game.

a FK is taken at one's leisure... not that "real-life quick-paced" as you put it... he has decent time to mentally adjust himself...

it is all about concentration... the jumpin' wavin' of people means little...

like i said before... he hit it 5 times in a row... meanin' he can hit it at will...

why than is most of his FKs not even on target?

Originally Posted by zZ[-_-]Zz

a FK is taken at one's leisure... not that "real-life quick-paced" as you put it... he has decent time to mentally adjust himself...

it is all about concentration... the jumpin' wavin' of people means little...

like i said before... he hit it 5 times in a row... meanin' he can hit it at will...

why than is most of his FKs not even on target?

If you were to watch a training session - I know you haven't because if you have, we wouldn't be having this discussion - you will understand how far off you are with your assumption that there is little to no dif between a real-life game and all the tricks players are doing in training sessions.

what I meant by quick-paced game is that a player is running around like crazy for some time before at some point he has to take a free kick - the heart rate, the dynamics of the game and events on the field, the tiredness ... all that contributes to making a big dif from how things are during training ground action where players often enjoy themselves and do all those tricks in a very relaxed and carefree atmosphere.

20-30 sec is hardly enough for a player to bring his heart rate and relax and concentrate ... some times they manage to do it, sometimes not ... if what you say is true, 95% of free kicks taken by good, not great but goo free-kick takers would be going in.
Instead, even the best miss most of the time.

Also, when Pirlo's free-kicks go too far away from the target, they are usually the ones he took from 30-35+ yards away. From such a distance, you either have to take a less risky shot and hope that the keeper will mess it up or take a more difficult shot - far bigger chance to not do it properly - and if you get it right and the shot is placed in the corner, even if the keeper does his job, there is a great chance for a goal.
All in all, there is no sense in taking an average shot from such distances and placing in in the middle of the goal because most of the time the keeper will gather it with no problems ...

Of course, the more dif the shot you opt to take, the higher the chance of you getting it wrong is.

i have seen many trainin' sessions... and i have been to many...

and again... it makes little difference at all... half exhausted... heart beatin' fast or not...

the question remains... why are most of his FKs not even on target?

I think its probably best for you to see the video for yourself to judge on why he cant hit them all the time.

Thanks Tony & Zlat your info was very helpful.

Originally Posted by zZ[-_-]Zz

i have seen many trainin' sessions... and i have been to many...

and again... it makes little difference at all... half exhausted... heart beatin' fast or not...

the question remains... why are most of his FKs not even on target?

I think if you really think about it and read what I wrote above, the 2nd part of the post, the question will no longer stand.

no disrespect intended but right now you seem to be lightly dismissing every explanation, reasonable or not, without any grounds whatsoever as you defend your stance with arguments that are based more on a gut feeling, an assumption than anything else.
Quite frankly, I don't think one needs to see even a single game of football in order to realize that one should expect a big dif between what's happening on a training ground and on the pitch in the highly charged atmosphere of a real game ... it's only natural, at least for me, something that we all see happen all the time with us too.

One example is preparing for a test - usually, before an important test people have far fewer problems with the material and get the feeling they are ready but once the test starts and the pressure and time constraints kick in, things change drastically and most of the time people rue mistakes they have made on things they did know and would have coped better under more relaxed circumstances.

That, and a number of dif circumstances like a wall, moving bodies and tiredness, are more than enough to make the dif between hitting the crossbar at will and hitting shots away from the intended target.

you say i base my reasonin' on assumptions... i say they are not...

however... your explanations are assumptions...

the question remains unanswered... or will you imply that i am makin' baseless accusations again?

Originally Posted by zZ[-_-]Zz

you say i base my reasonin' on assumptions... i say they are not...

however... your explanations are assumptions...

the question remains unanswered... or will you imply that i am makin' baseless accusations again?

what I claim is a fact - these things are indeed "differences" that are there, I am not making them up, neither am I dismissing them because I don't like the idea of them being there:

1) he took those attempts at the crossbar with no wall whatsoever in front of him, obviously there is a wall of 4-5 moving an waiving people when he takes a real-game free-kick ... a fact

2) when he took those crossbar shots, I doubt he was coming off 60-70 min of real game football all tired and his heart racing ... something that will obviously be there in a real game ... another fact

3) the "goal" in these two excercises is dif - when shoot for the crossbar, you don't care about scoring or not, you don't care about whether it will be in the middle or the corner.
When taking a free kick from 30-35+ yards out, a player has very limited choice where he could place the ball in such a way that even if the keeper reacts reasonably well, he would still have a good chance of scoring, otherwise the point of taking that free kick in the first place is defeated.
Hence, in order to score from 35 yeards, it would take a much more sophisticated and difficult to get it to perfection technique of kicking the ball - with the wall in front of you most of the time closer than it should be - than kicking a crossbar with no one in front of you ... to put it in another, simpler way, when taking free kicks, you have the opposition GKeeper to account for and not just free space between the posts - another fact, I would say.

What you do is claim/assume that none of the above, including the different psychological pressure during games, or the lack of it during that training excercise (actually, it wasn't even that but more like a happy moment with a journalist), will not make no difference at all ... well quite frankly, I guess with an approach like that we could also refute that the Earth is a sphere, or close to it.

Plus, logic says that if Pirlo is capable of that during a training session, then he should also have that same ability during the game, right? So it cannot be him "not having the ability" to do it, right?
Assuming the the ball is just as circular in both cases, then I guess the only things that are left and we have to account for are the dif "circumstances" in these two situations ... well, that's what I've been doing all along.

what is all this garbage about the Earth is a sphere or not? i'm not here to discuss geography...

since when did i say anythin' about scorin'? the question was why most of his FKs are not on target... not if he has the ability to do it or not...

don't make baseless accusations...