Free I Think Therefore I Play by Andrea Pirlo, Alessandro Alciato Page B

and the opposite of everything. Maldini is himself, but he’s also a part of me. And not seeing him at Milan after he retired, even as a director, really got to me. How can you possibly decide not to hang onto a piece of your heritage? What makes you stick him on the market and risk losing him like that?
    I’ve no answer because there isn’t one. We’re still good friends and, as such, we’ve talked a fair bit about what went on. It’s no secret he and Galliani didn’t see eye to eye from the moment problems arose in his contract renewal negotiations. Mr Bic offered a one-year deal and Paolo wasn’t having it: he felt hard done by and diminished. Not offering him a role that was worthy of him (and we’re not even talking something massively glamorous) was like biting off part of his being. It was Tyson against Holyfield and, as usual, it was the bald guy who won. It doesn’t seem to matter if he’s the one doing the biting or being bitten.
    Billy Costacurta is another man I have a great relationship with. He and Paolo were a dual reference point for everyone at Milan, whatever the situation. It could be something stupid: what shoes should I wear? I’ll ask Costacurta. Which tie goes better? I’ll ask Maldini. What’s my best position? I’ll ask them both. How should one behave at the dinner table? I’ll ask both of them again.
    Sometimes, particularly back in the early days, we’d ask them stuff simply for the pleasure of having their attention. They’d talk and we’d win – there was a magic in the air that anyone who came near could feed off. It was just like Christmas, when all you need to feel involved is to hear Jingle Bells and see some old guy dressed as Santa Claus. Suddenly Christmas belongs to you as well.
    Over the years, Milan have had Franco Baresi, Mauro Tassotti, Nesta and Thiago Silva in defence. Truly outstanding players; human shields to protect against the errors of others. If a forward makes a mistake, he can try again. If he scores, he’s in with a shout of the Ballon d’Or. But when it’s a defender who slips up, it’s a far more delicate situation. In percentage terms, the people who play at the back make fewer mistakes than those further forward. If not, games would end up 5–4, 6–5 or along those lines. Let’s discount teams coached by Zeman, 27 because we’re talking the very limits of reality there.
    While Milan had defenders like those guys, they could do as they wished. They could stick anyone up front. One collector card was the same as the next one.
    If I was a president, I’d never build a team with champions up front and dummies in defence. That’s just deceitful advertising designed to fool the fans.
     
    27. Zdeněk Zeman, the much-travelled Czech-Italian football coach famed for his adventurous, perhaps cavalier, approach to the game

Chapter 11
    “Andrea, we’ve signed this guy Huntelaar so you’ve got to stay.”
    Silvio Berlusconi smiled as he handed me a bit of paper he’d just pulled from his trolley case. It was a page crammed full of statistics along with a photo of a blond bloke: the lowdown on the new striker he’d just signed for Milan.
    The Pen Guy was sitting beside him, staring intently at me in the hope of spying a positive reaction. It was just the three of us in Milanello’s hall with the hearth, even if everyone outside knew that we were in there.
    Here’s the deal: Klass-Jan Huntelaar is an excellent player. He knows how to score goals, loads of goals and, at that point in time, he was playing for Real Madrid. But he’s not the type of guy who’s going to win the Ballon d’Or.
    “Well then, Andrea lad?”
    Our president had a difficult task that day – convincing me to stay. Persuading me to reopen a suitcase that was already on the check-in belt, ready to be weighed and then sent on its way.
    It was August 2009 and I’d reached agreement with Chelsea, the club where Ancelotti had just come in as manager. Carlo was like a father