Juventus midfielder's artistry and steel is key to the championship ambitions of Cesare Prandelli's team
Within the shifting formation of Cesare Prandelli's Italy there has been one constant focus of reliable excellence: Andrea Pirlo, the deep-lying playmaker who is among the most-readily identifiable of modern footballers, and on whom his team have come to rely for the tempo and pattern of their game. "With Pirlo at 100%," the journalist Mirko Graziano wrote, from the team's Krakow HQ, in Gazzetta dello Sport, "we can absolutely dream of doing something extraordinary in this Euro. Without him, it's easy to imagine going straight home."
Look what happened when they turned up in South Africa two years ago to defend their world championship. Pirlo – the recipient of three man-of-the-match awards in Germany in 2006, including those for the semi-final and the final – picked up a minor injury on the eve of the tournament and missed the draws with Paraguay and New Zealand. He was fit enough only to be thrown on for the last half-hour against Slovakia, but it was too late to save Italy from elimination. "That was the biggest disappointment of my career," Pirlo told the magazine Calcio Italia last year. "It hurt me a lot, especially since I can't see myself playing in another World Cup. In 2014, I'll be 35 years old. But I hope to have my last chance with the national team at Euro 2012."
He is certainly doing his best to help his team restore their reputation. He missed only one of their 10 qualifying matches, which they finished with eight wins and two draws, scoring 20 goals and conceding two. Over the past fortnight, he has had a hand in three of Italy's four goals, assisting Antonio Di Natale to score against Spain and Antonio Cassano against the Republic of Ireland, while scoring himself with one of his renowned free-kicks against Croatia. Only Mario Balotelli's acrobatic volley to complete the scoring against the Irish was achieved without his help.
Pirlo's flowing mane marks him out among his colleagues, but even more distinctive are the characteristics – the angles, the timing and almost infallible accuracy – of his passing that make Italy tick, and his constant availability in space around the centre circle.
At 33, and due to win his 87th senior cap against England on Sunday, he is nearing the end of the long prime of a career that began with uncertainty over his most effective position. He started out at his local club Brescia with the hope that he would blossom into a classic Italian No10, a creative goalscoring inside-forward in the mould of Gianni Rivera, Giancarlo Antognoni and the young Roberto Baggio. That was why Internazionale bought him in 1998, but Pirlo failed to make the expected impression. Despite captaining Italy's Under-21 side to victory in the 2000 European Championship, he was soon sent out on loan, first to Reggina and then, in 2001, back to Brescia.
It was during his return to Lombardy that Brescia's coach, Carlo Mazzone, found the key to unlocking his genius. As he had done with Baggio, Mazzone moved Pirlo into a deeper position, from where he could use his vision to direct the play: the role known in Italy as the regista. In English, the only term that seems to fit is quarterback.
That same year, Milan bought Pirlo for £15m, beginning the golden decade in which, mostly under the eye of Carlo Ancelotti, he collected two European Cups, two Uefa Super Cups, one Fifa Club World Cup and two Italian league titles. He would have been happy to stay in the red and black stripes for the rest of his career, but, last summer, Massimiliano Allegri decided he needed greater athleticism in his midfield and, in one of the great misjudgments of football history, denied Pirlo the three-year contract he was seeking.
Juventus, with a new stadium, a new head coach – Antonio Conte – and a new young chairman, Andrea Agnelli, plus ambition to recapture former glories, snapped him up. Only the colour of the stripes changed: the level of performance was as exalted as ever as Pirlo inspired Conte's side to an unbeaten season and the Serie A title.
Pirlo is an artist, and he has bodyguards on the pitch, but there is nothing fragile about him. No member of the Italy squad assembled by Prandelli, a fellow native of Brescia, has had more time on the pitch for club and country this season than his 4,722 minutes in 53 matches. Like Conte, Prandelli sees Pirlo as the focal point around which formations can be shuffled.
Somewhere in Steven Gerrard's mind will be the memory of one of the few blemishes on Pirlo's career: a penalty saved by Jerzy Dudek in the shootout at the end of the 2005 European Cup final in Istanbul, when Liverpool came from 3-0 down to win. The next year in Berlin, however, Pirlo was the first to step up for the shootout against France – and that time he made no mistake. Read More
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