Read Online I Think Therefore I Play by Andrea Pirlo, Alessandro Alciato - Free Book Online Page B

to Reggio Calabria through injury, but his post-match press conference has gone down in history. “If I was president Moratti, I’d sack the coach and give the players a good kick up the arse.” He got his way, at least with half of that recommendation. Our buttocks remained blissfully untouched.
    It was a shame he left, because he and I were very much on the same wavelength. We could understand each other instantly, despite the fact we’d only just met. All it took was one look for me to trust him blindly. It was a real pleasure to work with him.
    In his place arrived Marco Tardelli, the former manager of the Italy under-21s. We’d won the European Championship together, but perhaps he didn’t recognise me. Whatever the explanation, he never picked me and it really got me down. I lost count of the number of times I wanted to say to him, “you know where you can stick that roar that made you famous” but, being a well-mannered person, I always stopped myself in time.
    I no longer had any desire to be near him or that club. He killed it for me, wiping out what could have been a love without limits. I had to escape and, as ever, I got on the phone to Tinti.
    “Take me away from this madhouse. I’m done with Inter, for good. Never, ever again. Find me another club. Any club.”
    I went back to Brescia, on loan for six months, and then I moved to Milan for 12 billion lire 26 plus Andres Guglielminpietro. Who do you reckon got the better of that deal? I don’t like speaking ill of anyone, and that includes Tardelli, but the fact is he never gave me a chance. Every now and then he’d say: “I’m doing it for your own good; I don’t want you to burn out”, but it always seemed like an excuse. Back when he was coaching the under-21s, he said that youngsters were the future.
    Had Lippi stayed on, I’d be telling you a different story. The same one brought out every so often by the guy under the next parasol along from me on the beach each summer. “Andrea, you know that if I could go back in time…”
    I do know: he’d chain me to the walls of the dressing room at Appiano Gentile. My next door neighbour on the sand is none other than president Moratti. Leaving him behind was the one thing that saddened me when I moved. He’s a fantastic person, the exact same as he appears on TV. He’s the head of a family, a stately figure in an unseemly world, a slice of goodness in a sea of sharks. He’s also a fan, an extremely passionate one, and if that passion has often caused him to make the wrong decision, it can’t be considered a fault. If only all presidents were like him.
    He does everything in his power to make his club great. It belonged to his father Angelo before him, and theirs is a dynasty of poets, of romantics, of people who still have a heart when they win. Just as importantly, they also have a heart when they lose. I still care about him a lot and always will. I know for certain that the feeling is mutual. Every time I see him, he pays me a thousand compliments. I appreciate them because they’re genuine. It’s thanks to him that I’ve never managed to consider Inter an enemy, whether I’ve been playing for Juventus or Milan. In simple terms, my time at Inter just didn’t start or finish as I’d have wanted.
    During those long periods when it seemed my world was spinning in the wrong direction, my friends gave me some excellent advice. “When you can’t go on, think of something that relaxes you.” It turned out to be a precious tip. Whenever I was on the bench, or worse, in the stand, I’d close my eyes for a few seconds and picture myself with my bare feet (no studs, no socks, no shin guards and most of all no pressure) immersed in an enormous wooden barrel.
    I was crushing grapes, dancing right on top of them. Pulling down the vines and turning fruit into wine. I thought back to my childhood days spent harvesting the grapes at my grandmother Maria’s farm out in the countryside near Brescia.