Player Focus: The Challenge of Stopping Andrea Pirlo
The announcement had been expected for some time. On Wednesday it finally came. Andrea Pirlo signed a new contract with Juventus. Fans of the Old Lady will get to see the veteran deep-lying playmaker perform in Turin for another two years. Pirlo will continue to pull the black and white shirt on until 2016. These however are his last days in blue.
Appearing in front of the press on the afternoon his new deal became official, Pirlo confirmed from Italy’s training base in Mangaratiba that he will retire from international duty after this summer. “I think I will finish after the World Cup,” he said, “because I’m a certain age and it’s right to leave space to other players. It would be useless to continue. If there were need I wouldn’t have any problem coming back. But if I were to be called up and then not play I would be pissed off,” he smiled. Pirlo now has at least three games left for his country. He is hoping that it will be seven and Italy reach the final.
“The objective must always be the maximum,” Pirlo explained. “For me, getting out of the group, into the round of 16 and the quarter-finals is not enough. When I play football I do so to go all the way.” It doesn’t all depend on him of course although you could be forgiven for thinking it did. A headline in La Stampa this week passed comment on the English attitude towards him. “Obsession,” it read. “For them, he is the Maestro.”
Pirlo’s profile has never been higher than in the last two years. As with Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the English papers have come to him late only acknowledging his talent after he passed and Panenka-ed the country to death in the quarter-finals of Euro 2012. Even in the information age, it seems, an island is still an island. Without that performance and the fawning it caused it is unlikely his subsequent biography I Think Therefore I Play would ever have been published in English. Unsurprisingly the narrative ahead of Saturday’s game in Manaus has been based around one and one thing only: stopping Pirlo.
The England manager Roy Hodgson knows that it is not that simple. "Like all good players we're not going to stop him getting on the ball and we're not going to stop him passing the ball from time to time, in the same way Italy won't be able to stop Steven Gerrard passing the ball,” he said on Sky’s Footballers’ Football Show. “But we'll be working very hard to restrict his time on the ball and we'll be working even harder to restrict the spaces he can play the ball where the opposing team can hurt us."
Reading between the lines, it seems Hodgson’s approach will be to enclose Pirlo in a midfield triangle with Wayne Rooney at its tip and Jordan Henderson and Gerrard at its base. Closing him down and blocking the angles of his passes as a collective will be the order of the day. There will be no designated man-marker. The Park Ji-Sung protocol won’t be used.
Incidentally, there are other players who have policed Pirlo well and arrested the development of his team’s play. Steed Malbranque, for example. It requires great sacrifice. The former Fulham player followed Pirlo everywhere when Juventus played Lyon at the Stade Gerland in April. The regista completed only 40 passes on the night. He averaged 69 attempted passes per game this season. With their star player unable to dictate the game did Juventus fail to get a result? No, they didn’t. The Old Lady won 1-0. The source of their victory was one of several contingencies coach Antonio Conte has put in place should Pirlo be nullified.
He has had Leonardo Bonucci bring the ball out from the back and make the play himself. The centre-back attempted 103 passes against Lyon: 16 of his 27 long balls were accurate. He also scored the winner. The ability of the Juventus defenders to pick a pass when the Pirlo out-ball isn’t on is applicable to Italy too when you consider they also form its backline. To further illustrate this point Giorgio Chiellini averaged the third most passes per game in Serie A this season (68.3).
Pirlo has also learned a number of movements to untie himself from the binds of his opponents. He drifts wide in search of space. If a marker follows him a gap is left for a teammate to fill. If he doesn’t then he has a new pulpit from which to preach. This is why Hodgson is correct to say it’s everyone’s responsibility to limit Pirlo. England must also focus on playing and imposing their own game.
It’s unrealistic to expect them to replicate what Bayern did to Juventus in the Champions League last season for a number of reasons. First, England, let’s be frank, aren’t anywhere near as good as Jupp Heynckes’ treble-winners. Second, pressing to the effect that Bayern did will be difficult in Manaus (and besides, when have England ever pressed like that). But the Germans rushed Pirlo really well. Thomas Müller didn’t give him a moment’s peace. Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben cut inside and ran off Pirlo to devastating effect. Limited to only 58 touches (he has averaged 92.3 over the past two years), he made only 26 accurate passes at the Allianz that night.
Many England fans would like to see Ross Barkley and Raheem Sterling play and be given the same instructions as Ribery and Robben. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen. And even if England do curb Pirlo the likelihood is that they will have to contend with Marco Verratti too as Italy coach Cesare Prandelli persists with his doppio-play - or double playmaker system. Factor in that Daniele De Rossi will also be in Italy’s midfield - he averaged the most passes per game in Serie A this season (73.8 to Pirlo’s 69) and it will be very difficult for England to get the ball. They could spend a lot of time chasing it and that could be their undoing in the heat and humidity of Manaus. If England allow Pirlo and his fellow midfielders to make them sweat, their chances of getting a result could soon evaporate.
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