To many people around the world, Andrea Pirlo is a god. As a soccer player for some of the planet’s biggest clubs, he has two Champions League trophies and six league titles. In 2006, he won the World Cup with Italy, where he has three times been player of the year, and where his nicknames include ‘‘Mozart’’ and ‘‘The Professor.’’ His 2013 autobiography, ‘‘I Think Therefore I Play,’’ was a best seller in Italy. There are social media accounts devoted entirely to his beard. A quick Google search of his name returns results like ‘‘37 Reasons Why Andrea Pirlo Is the World’s Greatest Living Human Man.’’ He has met two popes.

But none of that matters in New York City, where Pirlo is standing on a street corner just a block from Herald Square in Manhattan. Last summer, he surprised fans the world over by signing a two-and-a-half-year contract with New York City FC, a first-year team in Major League Soccer. At 36, the Brescia native covers Vanity Fair and GQ in Italy, but today is his first solo magazine shoot in the U.S. Despite a steady drizzle that has interrupted nearly two weeks of mid-November sunshine, Pirlo shows up from training perfectly coiffed in a Massimo Piombo houndstooth blazer and a bright orange cardigan. A team of photographer’s assistants and stylists huddles around a laptop screen while their subject stands statuelike in the rain. Back home, such a happening would most likely devolve into a mob scene, but here most onlookers just file by — until a trio on holiday from Milan spots him. ‘‘Ciao, Andrea!’’ one of them shrieks. A few tourists also take notice, snapping photos on their phones. Pirlo gives a modest smile before returning to his pose.

Pirlo’s American life couldn’t be more different than that of M.L.S.’s other most famous import, David Beckham. Whereas Beckham drove through Los Angeles in a customized Escalade with his jersey number emblazoned on the grille, Pirlo prefers getting around Manhattan by foot. In the evenings, he strolls along the High Line or goes golfing in the Bronx. In October, he took his girlfriend to an Alberto Burri exhibition at the Guggenheim, where they were free to explore, undisturbed. Occasionally, he’ll stop by Felidia, the homey Italian restaurant owned by a friend’s mother, for a glass of wine. ‘‘Just being able to go out to dinner at the trendiest restaurants — in Italy, I can’t do that,’’ says Pirlo. Anonymity is a delightful novelty for him, after years of contending with fanatical supporters and near-constant police escorts in Europe. ‘‘There were times we were kept in our dressing room until late at night because it wasn’t safe to go home,’’ he says. ‘‘Our bus would get attacked, the tires slit.’’ When his contract with Juventus, the Turin-based club owned by the Fiat scion Andrea Agnelli, expired last June, Pirlo began considering a move to America, where he’d be just another player. Never mind that he’d be giving up the chartered planes and five-star amenities of top-flight European football. Months later, he can hardly believe his luck. ‘‘I always wanted to come here to play,’’ he says, ‘‘but I never thought it would be so soon.’’