Welcome to the "better know a legend" series. I would have preferred to call it "better know a 'yung don'", but I'll try to spare you — and the Cavalier Daily editors whom I appreciate deeply — my normally esoteric lexicon.
This is intended to be a collection of player profiles bearing no consistent frequency or predetermined quantity. Maybe we'll see it again next week, maybe in a month — who knows? What will unite these stories, however, is an undying commitment to share my appreciation for an elite class of athletes — mostly soccer players — unified in their peculiar brilliance, both in style and substance.
Let’s begin the journey.
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There is truly nothing exceptional about Andrea Pirlo’s stature, build, or athleticism. Though tall for a soccer player, he stands only 5’10’’, with perfectly average physique and movement. There is a good chance your Aunt Dolores could push him to the brink in a foot race. Your granddad could probably do more pushups in a minute.
But take one look at Pirlo’s face — the stoic eyes; mystical, wise, full beard; distinct, protruding ears; swept aside, wavy locks of brown hair — and you will instinctually understand that he his far superior to any of your oddly agile relatives. Even if you don’t know in what way he outdoes them, his aura of confidence is an unmistakable, unchanging truth. His crafty style outdoes his unassuming appearance. Pirlo is truly a player of the people.
Pirlo plays in a role normally inhabited by a brute with reasonable-enough positional sense. In the defensive midfield, players are — at a bare minimum — expected to break up play and provide cover for the back four. Pirlo has transformed the position into something few have replicated.
In the spirit of a reinvented Makélélé, Patrick Vieria, or Gennaro Gattuso, he drifts as he chooses, dictating the pace of the game, keeping possession, hitting balls over the top, and spraying passes wide — whatever he chooses.
But the ball always goes through him.
If Pirlo were a quarterback, he’d be Drew Brees — an unapologetically accurate pass master and deadball tactician. Since 2009, Pirlo’s pass completion has not dropped below a nauseatingly high 86 percent in Series A play. Against England in this past summer’s World Cup Group D game, he completed more passes alone than England’s entire four-man midfield during the first half, at an absurd 96 percent clip.
To be fair, however, Pirlo has a bit of an unfair advantage, as he appears to entirely lack the normal human qualities of hesitation, doubt or surprise. Writing about his experience at the 2006 World Cup, where his Azzurri ultimately triumphed, he had but this to say in summary: "I spent the afternoon of Sunday, July 9, 2006 sleeping and playing the PlayStation. In the evening, I went out and won the World Cup.”
I get the impression he would be more concerned by a stain on his shirt than an onrushing Julius Peppers.
Now familiar with the style and grace which characterizes his game, his exploits off the field ought not surprise you. Pirlo is aconnoisseur of wines. Growing up in a region of Italy abounding with grapes, Pirlo purchased farmland near his hometown in Brescia which produces 15,000 to 20,000 bottles of wine per year.
It is easy to imagine a player who produces such artistry and oozes class from his veins might enjoy sipping a product of his own labor. I am reasonably confident Pirlo was born the 35-year-old, refined figure he is — beard and all.
Pirlo, much like his wine, has gotten better with age. At 35, he demonstrates the same consistent play which pushed Juventus to take him on as a free transfer from AC Milan three years ago. Perhaps nothing demonstrates this more than his uncanny ability to air-mail free kicks past goalkeepers, almost at will. And in his simple, stuttering approach, they are truly beautiful.
Emulating a Brazilian legend, he claims to think in Portuguese when these situations arise, writing, “I'm a Juninho Pernambucano 2.0, a Brazilian with a Brescia accent.” His numbers speak for themselves. A resounding 43 off his 66 career goals have come from direct free kicks. At least 10 of his 14 goals for Juventus in the past three years, are results of this same magic. In fact, his output has increased — from 3, to 5, to 6, in each of his seasons in Turin.
I fantasize that in 2018, at the age of 39, he might join DC United and form an unbeatable midfield partnership with Perry Kitchen. In this fictional world, he sinks a game-winning free kick, finds me after the game, and takes me under his wing as his pupil in soccer, in grape harvests and in life. Even if I allowed my hair and beard to grow like his, however, I could never approach his level of mystique.
I take solace in the fact that nobody can, or ever will.
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