He has an answer to that. No. “Maybe I would have done even better,” he said with a smile. His logic is based on a more than imperturb...
He has an answer to that. No. “Maybe I would have done even better,” he said with a smile. His logic is based on a more than imperturbable self-confidence. “It was a bit more technical when I was playing,” he said. “Now it may be more physical. But there were a lot of players in my generation, a lot of teams with technical players of the highest level.
“Maybe there aren’t that many now, so a bit of quality goes a long way. It would be just as valuable in this kind of football, maybe more. Those types of players, those who are a little smarter or a little more technical, are harder to come by now. In all this speed, all this haste, there are certain situations where the most important thing is a bit of intelligence, a bit of technique.
Besides, Pirlo is adamant that certain truths about football hold, regardless of game trends, tastes, ebbs and flows. He might look at it now with the eye of a manager, scouring what he sees in search of strategic insight, tactical maneuver, but he remains a player at heart. “You have to work in systems now more than you did,” he said. “But it always comes down to the players.” A coach, he knows from personal experience, is never completely in control of events. Even the finest strategies, the most complex schemes, depend on the humans responsible for implementing them.
“Everything can change,” he said. “It can be faster or slower, it can have one style or another, but it’s always the players who make things happen on the pitch.”
In this, for Pirlo, he always remains the same, familiar, recognizable, as attractive as he has always been. “You can ask if it was nicer before, or nicer now,” he said. “But it’s still beautiful.”
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