Football is a team game at its core, but it's also a playground rich with big personalities and outrageous skill. The biggest stars are defined by their otherworldly egos; calculated branding; and absurd, highlight-worthy goals.
Cristiano Ronaldo's hair. Mario Balotelli's non-celebration celebration. Lionel Messi's childlike glee. Every word that passes through Jose Mourinho's lips. Yaya Toure's callous treatment of opponents, not as human beings but simply as physical matter to be navigated, anonymous in his wake.
We remember them because they force us to remember. To watch a game involving any of the above is to see history made in real time. Even when they're injured, the camera is drawn to them in the stands, on the sidelines.
Wherever they happen to be watching the game, we can't help watching them and making GIFs of every reaction, facial tic or style choice. Though Gareth Bale's gazelle-esque acceleration beyond Marc Bartra for Real Madrid's Copa del Rey-winning goal was a breathless force of nature, there was as much attention lavished on Ronaldo's black Nike hat as on the goal itself.
Yet there's another strata of equally worthy heroes, those whose quiet command of the spotlight is just as intriguing. To borrow a recent line from Colson Whitehead, they're the Peter Lawford of football's Rat Pack, the "ones who hold the secrets."
They don't demand your attention; they steal it.
- #WorldCupRank: No. 15, Andrea Pirlo
- 32 teams in 32 days: Italy
Andrea Pirlo is the crown prince of football's secrets. Enigmatic to the point of redefining the word, his skill has steadily propelled every team of which he's ever been a part. Dashing looks, fly-like vision, unparalleled passing range and a free-kick gift that's simply unmatched.
Ball games were invented centuries ago with Pirlo as the endgame, each leather orb seemingly made to nestle on his instep. When Pirlo parts with it, there's no separation anxiety given his intent; an assist, a sublime pass into space, yet another set piece nestled in the back of a net, another goalkeeper beaten.
The apex of his brilliance? Euro 2012. That penalty. Sure, he was using another man's trick -- the Panenka, named for its Czech creator, Antonin, who beat West Germany in Euro 1976 with it in a penalty shootout -- but the execution was so ballsy and flawless that it's almost worth renaming in Pirlo's honour.
Humiliation from 12 yards out, Pirlo's delicate chip set the tone for Italy's PK win over England in the quarterfinals, an emasculating slap from which the Three Lions (and, to some extent, Joe Hart) have arguably never quite recovered.
It wasn't the first time he'd done it, but such is Pirlo's confidence that he could do it 100 times and score 99.
(It's worth watching the entire shootout again to see how much it swung the outcome in the Azzurri's favour. England were up 2-1 at the time of Pirlo's casual amble to the spot; after Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney thundered theirs beyond Gianluigi Buffon, Riccardo Montolivo sidefooted his wide of the post. Hart was confident; so were England. After Pirlo's chip, Ashley Young thumped one off the bar, desperately trying to erase Andrea's hex, while Ashley Cole surrendered with a tame sidefooter into Buffon's gut. It was the jab before the uppercut.)
Euro 2012 was "his" tournament -- as the Gazzetta dello Sport rhapsodized that summer, "The only thing missing now is for [Pirlo] to start multiplying loaves of bread and fish" -- but countless others have been, too.
The 2007 Champions League final, in which he erased Milan's renown as victims in the Miracle of Istanbul by steadily calming Gerrard's fiery influence and growing his own with every pass. Liverpool could barely get near him.
The 2006 World Cup; his pass for Fabio Grosso's extra-time goal that broke the spirit of host nation Germany and pushed Italy into the final. Though the Italian left-back deserves endless credit for his curling finish, Pirlo's no-look dink into a tiny pocket of space was the difference.
The 2011-12 Serie A season; after joining Juventus thanks to Milan's crumbling finances (they mutually agreed not to renew his contract as he passed his 32nd birthday), he led The Old Lady to the first of three successive Scudettos, notching 13 assists and winning the club's player of the season award.
It could be argued, to a point, that Pirlo is a bit of a luxury in the modern era. Many teams couldn't afford to carry him in midfield given the uptick in pace and the need for defensive work from every man on the pitch, but both Juve and Italy have been all too happy to surround him with agile, hard-working teammates so that his curated skill sets can shine to the fullest.
Pirlo isn't all grace, either. Take his goal against Parma, almost antithetical to his usual art as he thundered it from fully 35 yards into the top corner. While the opponent sat back to prepare for a clever pass into the penalty area, he blew the house down.
He grew a beard; he grew better with age. He wrote a bracingly honest autobiography -- funny how Zlatan Ibrahimovic is mocked for his egotistical reflections, while Pirlo is lauded for his -- posed in vineyards, studied his free-kick skills on the toilet and revealed that he might, in fact, be a wizard.
But most of all, what makes Pirlo so revered is that he never changed his style to fit the modern game.
The game changed for him.