“Football always changes and it changes quickly,” Andrea Pirlo tells Sky Sports. “It has become much more physical, much faster. In fact, if you want to win now, you need players who are fast and technically good one-on-one. Otherwise, you go nowhere.”Speaking to the great Italian midfielder his verdict on modern football can feel like a lament. “The teams that win now have fast players. It was not so bad once. You could afford technically skilled players without speed, whereas now you need players at this level.”
Even in his prime, Pirlo appeared something of an anachronism. Now 47, his career spent shuttling around at the base of midfield feels like another world. Having started out in a more attacking role at Inter, he was famously deployed there to find more space.
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Fabio Grosso with Andrea Pirlo in pursuit after scoring in the 2006 World Cup semi-final
It worked spectacularly, triumphing twice in the Champions League with AC Milan either side of a World Cup win with Italy in 2006. He controlled games well into his mid-thirties but maybe the future was signposted in his final appearance in European club football.Pirlo bowed out with Juventus when they were beaten in the 2015 Champion League final by Barcelona. Their coach that night in Berlin? One Luis Enrique, winning the trophy for the first time. “Luis Enrique is the best coach in the world at the moment,” he says.
Significantly, that match also marked Xavi’s final game for Barcelona. Pirlo’s great admiration for that Barca midfield of Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Sergio Busquets was such that he once admitted to spending hours playing as the Catalan club on the PlayStation.
But Luis Enrique has built a side to rival them in Paris. “He has created a strong team, a strong mentality with young players. It is a real pleasure to see them do well and even better to watch them because it is fast, dynamic, technical football that everyone likes.”
As many others have pointed out, Paris Saint-Germain’s great success in Europe came only after Neymar, Lionel Messi and finally Kylian Mbappe had departed. Pirlo is among those who sees this as significant and a testament to the work of Luis Enrique in Paris.”It is all thanks to the coach. He wanted to get rid of all the stars that were there before him and he preferred to start again with people who did what the coach asked them to do. It is a…
2026-05-28 07:30:00
