Daily Times

NEW YORK CITY: World Cup winner Andrea Pirlo brought down the curtain on his glittering football career on Monday, signing off with a message on Twitter hours after coming on as a late substitute for Major League Soccer side New York City in their 2-0 win over Columbus Crew. The 38-year-old suggested last month he would retire at the end of the season and leaves the game with two Champions League titles, six Serie A crowns, the 2006 World Cup he won with Italy, as well as a host of other trophies and honours accumulated in more than 20 years. “Not only my adventure in NY comes to an end but my journey as a football player as well,” Pirlo, who has 116 caps for his country, said in the message. The midfielder made his senior debut for his hometown club Brescia at the age of 16 before moving to Inter Milan in 1998. He struggled to nail down a starting place at Inter, where he was deployed behind the strikers, and was signed by city rivals AC Milan in 2001 with doubts looming over his effectiveness. Pirlo played second fiddle to Rui Costa in his first season at Milan, where like at Inter he was deployed as a ‘trequartista’, a position where his lack of pace hindered him. It was only under Carlo Ancelotti the following season that he began to flourish, with the manager’s decision to move him to a deeper role just in front of the defence allowing his playmaking talents to come to the fore.

Published in Daily Times, November 8^th 2017.