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The Italian Maestro and Legend, Andrea Pirlo retired earlier this week on Sunday when New York City FC weren’t able to qualify for the Playoffs. The game marked the end of a 22-year career of one of the best Midfielders of all time.

Last weekend marked the finale of Andrea Pirlo’s career, finally retiring at New York City FC after a legendary career primarily based in Italy. Pirlo played in the Serie A of Italy for 20 years, playing for teams such as Brescia, Inter Milan, AC Milan, and Juventus. The Italian retires with six Serie A’s, two Coppa Italia’s, two UEFA Champions League’s, and one World Cup.

Grazie Maestro

Andrea Pirlo is classed as one of the best midfielders of all time and arguably, the best deep-lying playmaker ever. The Italian actually started as an Attacking Midfielder at Brescia and stayed in that Trequartista role at Inter Milan too.

It was only until he moved to the other side of Milan and met their Manager, Carlo Ancelotti, who moved the Italian to a deep-lying midfield role in which he thrived in for many years.

Pirlo became an important cog in the dominant Milan teams of the 2000’s, normally being partnered in midfield with Gennaro Gattuso, Clarence Seedorf, and Kaka.

Gattuso also partnered him in midfield for their magnificent run in Germany when Italy won the World Cup in 2006. The ferocious Italian Midfielder had this to say about Pirlo;

“I played with him for about 20 years when you consider the national youth teams, in difficult moments I just gave it to him, I always felt assured when I was next to him…I understood what I had to do, and he was taking care of the rest. He helped me much more in my career than I did him.”

The Mentor

The Italian was also an integral piece of the 2010’s teams of Juventus with their world-class Midfield. With other players such as Claudio Marchisio, Arturo Vidal, and Paul Pogba, Pirlo took more of a mentoring role for the younger Midfielders.

Pogba who has become one of the best Midfielders in the world tweeted out to Pirlo to thank him for his leadership in his younger years:

Andrea Pirlo will go down in history as one of the best ever deep-lying playmakers and an instrumental member of a World Cup winning team and two Champions League winning teams.

Follow me on Twitter @MikeParrott_