Andrea Pirlo

Andrea Pirlo, Cavaliere Ufficiale OMRI(born 19 May 1979 in Flero, Lombardy), is an Italian World Cup winning footballer who currently plays for Serie A club Juventus, and for the Italian national team. He is usually deployed as a deep-lying playmaker for both Juventus and Italy and is regarded as one of best players in this position Praised for his inventive play and his long passing ability, he is also a set-piece specialist.
Pirlo has played for the Italian youth teams U-15, U-18 and U-21, captaining and leading the latter to victory in the 2000 as the Golden Player and Top Scorer of the tournament. He joined the Italian senior side during the qualification round for World Cup 2002 and captained the national team to a bronze medal in the 2004 Olympics. Later, he was instrumental in their victory in the 2006 World Cup. He was named man of the match three times, including the final, more than any other player in the tournament, and ultimately won the Bronze Ball (third best player in tournament).
With Milan, he has won two UEFA Champions League (2003 and 2007), two European Super Cups (2003 and 2007), two Scudetto (2004 and 2011), an Italian Super Cup (2004), a FIFA Club World Cup (2007), and the Italian Cup in 2003.He came in third and second in IFFHS World Playmaker of the Year awards in 2006 and 2007, respectively.Fellow players on the Italian team gave him the nickname "l'architetto" (the architect) because his long passes frequently set up goal-scoring opportunities for the Azzurri (Italian national team).
Pirlo was born in Flero, Lombardy, Italy. His brother Ivan plays for a Serie C2 club in Brescia. Pirlo made his debut for Brescia against Reggina. After breaking into the Brescia first team, Pirlo was spotted by Internazionale coach, Mircea Lucescu who signed the playmaker. However, Pirlo was unable to break into the first squad and Internazionale finished 8th in the 1998–99 Serie A campaign. Pirlo was shipped off on loan to the club he made his debut against in 1995, Reggina. After an impressive season he returned to Internazionale but was once again unable to break into the first squad making just 4 league appearances and spent the second half of the season on loan at former club, Brescia.
After 3 seasons on the Internazionale books, Pirlo was sold to fierce rivals, Fatih Terim's Milan for 35 billion Italian lire (about €18 million). That transfer windows the two clubs has also swapped Cristian Brocchi for Guly; Paolo Ginestra for Matteo Bogani. The deals later reported by press were also aimed to create "false profit" by inflating the transfer fees in the swap deal, which Ginestra and Bogani both created €3.5million "profit" for both clubs but in terms of registration rights, while Brnčić created a lurid €9.6 million gain.
It was at Milan where he found his true strides developing into a world class player. With Milan, he won two Scudetto and two Champions League titles. He also won an Italian Cup and two UEFA Super Cups with Milan in 2003 and 2007. However, his most forgettable incident was the penalty miss during 2005 UEFA Champions League Final, as he found his spot kick was saved by Jerzy Dudek.
Juventus have announced that they have signed midfielder Andrea Pirlo as a free agent on a contract that will last until 2014. “The contract signed is from July 1, 2011 until June 30, 2014.” After the transfer to Juventus, Pirlo stated that going to Juventus was not an incorrect choice.