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Andrea Pirlo "i slept with Jerzy Dudek"


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"And the entire liverpool team after Istanbul"

 

"It was a nightmare, i sat around like some half-wit, liverpool had mentally destroyed me" "nothing made sense"

 

Pirlo's new book, sounds a cracker.

 

Sorry its the mail and i can't cut & paste,

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2604647/ANDREA-PIRLO-EXCLUSIVE-I-quit-losing-Liverpool-Champions-League-final.html

 

Other quotes,

 

"Hodgson used to keep getting my name wrong"

 

" Fergursons the purple nose'd manager of battleship man utd"

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Istanbul loss made me want to retire

 

I thought about quitting because, after Istanbul, nothing made sense any more. The 2005 Champions League final simply suffocated me.

 

To most people’s minds, the reason we lost on penalties was Jerzy Dudek – that jackass of a dancer who took the mickey out of us by swaying about on his line and then rubbed salt into the wound by saving our spot kicks

 

But in time the truly painful sentence was realising that we were entirely to blame.

How it happened I don’t know, but the fact remains that when the impossible becomes reality, somebody’s f***ed up – in this case, the entire team. A mass suicide where we all joined hands and jumped off the Bosphorus Bridge.

 

When that torture of a game was finished, we sat like a bunch of half-wits in the dressing room there at the Atatürk Stadium.

 

We couldn’t speak. We couldn’t move. They’d mentally destroyed us. The damage was already evident even in those early moments, and it only got more stark and serious as the hours went on.

 

Insomnia, rage, depression, a sense of nothingness. We’d invented a new disease with multiple symptoms: Istanbul syndrome.

 

I no longer felt like a player, and that was devastating enough. But even worse, I no longer felt like a man. All of a sudden, football had become the least important thing, precisely because it was the most important: a very painful contradiction.

 

I didn’t dare look in the mirror in case my reflection spat back at me. The only possible solution I could think of was to retire. And what a dishonourable retirement it would have been.

 

I glimpsed the end of the line: the journey was over. The story was finished and so was I. I walked with my head bowed even in the places I hold most dear. It wasn’t to avoid sympathetic glances, just that when you don’t know where you’re going, looking ahead makes you tired and worried.

 

People talk about performance anxiety. Well, ‘non-performance’ anxiety is the perfect description for those of us who simply vanished from the pitch sometime during that final.

 

The match in Istanbul was on May 25 and the Italian championship had yet to finish. We had to go back to Milanello to carry our cross for four more days, right up until Sunday, May 29, when we played our last Serie A match against Udinese.

 

That parade of shame was the toughest punishment. A cavalcade of disgrace with us placed front and centre.

 

It was a brief, intense, s****y period. You couldn’t escape or pull the plug on a world that had turned upside down, and you were forever surrounded by the other guilty parties in this theft of our own dignity.

 

We always ended up talking about it. We asked each other questions, but nobody had any answers.

 

I could hardly sleep and even when I did drop off, I awoke to a grim thought: I’m disgusting. I can’t play any more. I went to bed with Dudek and all his Liverpool team-mates.

 

The game against Udinese ended 0-0, goals a perfect stranger. A nightmare is a nightmare because you know it’ll start when you close your eyes but won’t stop when you reopen them, and so the torment went on.

 

Painfully slowly, things started to improve during the holidays, even if the wounds didn’t heal completely.

 

I’ll never fully shake that sense of absolute impotence when destiny is at work. The feeling will cling to my feet forever, trying to pull me down. Even now if I mess up a pass, that malign force could be to blame. For that reason, I steer well clear of the DVD from the Liverpool game.

 

It’s an enemy that I can’t allow to wound me a second time. It’s already done enough damage: most of it hidden far from the surface.

 

I’ll never watch that match again. I’ve already played it once in person and many other times in my head, searching for an explanation that perhaps doesn’t even exist.

 

It was suggested we hang a black funeral pall as a permanent reminder on the walls of Milanello, right next to the images of triumph. A message to future generations that feeling invincible is the first step on the path to the point of no return.

 

Personally, I’d add that horrendous result to the club’s honours board. I’d write it slap bang in the middle of the list of leagues and cups they’ve won, in a different coloured ink and perhaps a special font, just to underline its jarring presence.

 

It would be embarrassing but, at the same time, it would enhance the worth of the successes alongside.

 

There are always lessons to be found in the darkest moments. It’s a moral obligation to dig deep and find that little glimmer of hope or pearl of wisdom.

 

You might hit upon an elegant phrase that stays with you and makes the journey that little less bitter. I’ve tried with Istanbul and haven’t managed to get beyond these words: for f***’s sake.

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Every so often I forget how good that Milan team were and then have a quick look at the names and remind myself of what we achieved there

GK 1 Dida

RB 2 Cafu

CB 31 Jaap Stam

CB 13 Alessandro Nesta

LB 3 Paolo Maldini ©

DM 21 Andrea Pirlo

RM 8 Gennaro Gattuso

LM 20 Clarence Seedorf

AM 22 Kaká

CF 7 Andriy Shevchenko

CF 11 Hernán Crespo

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Istanbul loss made me want to retire

 

I thought about quitting because, after Istanbul, nothing made sense any more. The 2005 Champions League final simply suffocated me.

 

To most people’s minds, the reason we lost on penalties was Jerzy Dudek – that jackass of a dancer who took the mickey out of us by swaying about on his line and then rubbed salt into the wound by saving our spot kicks

 

But in time the truly painful sentence was realising that we were entirely to blame.

How it happened I don’t know, but the fact remains that when the impossible becomes reality, somebody’s f***ed up – in this case, the entire team. A mass suicide where we all joined hands and jumped off the Bosphorus Bridge.

 

When that torture of a game was finished, we sat like a bunch of half-wits in the dressing room there at the Atatürk Stadium.

 

We couldn’t speak. We couldn’t move. They’d mentally destroyed us. The damage was already evident even in those early moments, and it only got more stark and serious as the hours went on.

 

Insomnia, rage, depression, a sense of nothingness. We’d invented a new disease with multiple symptoms: Istanbul syndrome.

 

I no longer felt like a player, and that was devastating enough. But even worse, I no longer felt like a man. All of a sudden, football had become the least important thing, precisely because it was the most important: a very painful contradiction.

 

I didn’t dare look in the mirror in case my reflection spat back at me. The only possible solution I could think of was to retire. And what a dishonourable retirement it would have been.

 

I glimpsed the end of the line: the journey was over. The story was finished and so was I. I walked with my head bowed even in the places I hold most dear. It wasn’t to avoid sympathetic glances, just that when you don’t know where you’re going, looking ahead makes you tired and worried.

 

People talk about performance anxiety. Well, ‘non-performance’ anxiety is the perfect description for those of us who simply vanished from the pitch sometime during that final.

 

The match in Istanbul was on May 25 and the Italian championship had yet to finish. We had to go back to Milanello to carry our cross for four more days, right up until Sunday, May 29, when we played our last Serie A match against Udinese.

 

That parade of shame was the toughest punishment. A cavalcade of disgrace with us placed front and centre.

 

It was a brief, intense, s****y period. You couldn’t escape or pull the plug on a world that had turned upside down, and you were forever surrounded by the other guilty parties in this theft of our own dignity.

 

We always ended up talking about it. We asked each other questions, but nobody had any answers.

 

I could hardly sleep and even when I did drop off, I awoke to a grim thought: I’m disgusting. I can’t play any more. I went to bed with Dudek and all his Liverpool team-mates.

 

The game against Udinese ended 0-0, goals a perfect stranger. A nightmare is a nightmare because you know it’ll start when you close your eyes but won’t stop when you reopen them, and so the torment went on.

 

Painfully slowly, things started to improve during the holidays, even if the wounds didn’t heal completely.

 

I’ll never fully shake that sense of absolute impotence when destiny is at work. The feeling will cling to my feet forever, trying to pull me down. Even now if I mess up a pass, that malign force could be to blame. For that reason, I steer well clear of the DVD from the Liverpool game.

 

It’s an enemy that I can’t allow to wound me a second time. It’s already done enough damage: most of it hidden far from the surface.

 

I’ll never watch that match again. I’ve already played it once in person and many other times in my head, searching for an explanation that perhaps doesn’t even exist.

 

It was suggested we hang a black funeral pall as a permanent reminder on the walls of Milanello, right next to the images of triumph. A message to future generations that feeling invincible is the first step on the path to the point of no return.

 

Personally, I’d add that horrendous result to the club’s honours board. I’d write it slap bang in the middle of the list of leagues and cups they’ve won, in a different coloured ink and perhaps a special font, just to underline its jarring presence.

 

It would be embarrassing but, at the same time, it would enhance the worth of the successes alongside.

 

There are always lessons to be found in the darkest moments. It’s a moral obligation to dig deep and find that little glimmer of hope or pearl of wisdom.

 

You might hit upon an elegant phrase that stays with you and makes the journey that little less bitter. I’ve tried with Istanbul and haven’t managed to get beyond these words: for f***’s sake.

Amazing!

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I thought his was the worst penalty in that shoot-out because it was indecisive and lacked composure - the very opposite to his actual qualities. It's fair to say he recovered well and then some. He might be well into his 30s now but he's still one of the best midfielders on the planet, and still one of the coolest bastards on the planet.

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I thought his was the worst penalty in that shoot-out because it was indecisive and lacked composure - the very opposite to his actual qualities. It's fair to say he recovered well and then some. He might be well into his 30s now but he's still one of the best midfielders on the planet, and still one of the coolest bastards on the planet.

 

I agree, he made up for that miss with this though.

 

 

To be one behind on penalties and have the bollocks to try that, and pull it off, fair play to him, one of the greats.

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Watched the Carragher doc on Sky the other day, when i saw the players against us, i just dont know how we came back from 3-0 down. Stevie G is what i came up with, especialy after seeing the huddle after the Citeh game. We deserve the league just for him

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Every so often I forget how good that Milan team were and then have a quick look at the names and remind myself of what we achieved there

GK 1 Dida

RB 2 Cafu

CB 31 Jaap Stam

CB 13 Alessandro Nesta

LB 3 Paolo Maldini ©

DM 21 Andrea Pirlo

RM 8 Gennaro Gattuso

LM 20 Clarence Seedorf

AM 22 Kaká

CF 7 Andriy Shevchenko

CF 11 Hernán Crespo

Yep, it's still the most complete attacking front three I think I've ever seen. They really did carve us apart like a roast early on. Pace, power, skill, sensational.

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Every so often I forget how good that Milan team were and then have a quick look at the names and remind myself of what we achieved there

GK 1 Dida

RB 2 Cafu

CB 31 Jaap Stam

CB 13 Alessandro Nesta

LB 3 Paolo Maldini ©

DM 21 Andrea Pirlo

RM 8 Gennaro Gattuso

LM 20 Clarence Seedorf

AM 22 Kaká

CF 7 Andriy Shevchenko

CF 11 Hernán Crespo

 

How the mighty have fallen, probably no one in the current squad would get in that team

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'They're an horrendous bunch, a herd of frustrated individuals who've taken the worst of history and made it their own.'

 

His comments on racists  sum them up pretty well, he was a wonderful player and thank fuck he didn't sign for those massive bellends chelsea.

 


 

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There is no probably about it but to be fair you wouldn't have to fall that far.  On paper that is one of the best 11's ever.  Just fucking look at it, it's ridiculous.

 

Whenever i watch the final back and look at that Milan team sheet im still blown away by it, incredible team apart from the goalkeeper.

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I just got transported to that final in my head reading that. I remember wanting the ground to just open up at half time so we didnt get humiliated any further. Then I saw the most incredible game of football i think i will ever see. I never thought about them but reading that you can just see how gutting that defeat would be to take.

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Every so often I forget how good that Milan team were and then have a quick look at the names and remind myself of what we achieved there

GK 1 Dida

RB 2 Cafu

CB 31 Jaap Stam

CB 13 Alessandro Nesta

LB 3 Paolo Maldini ©

DM 21 Andrea Pirlo

RM 8 Gennaro Gattuso

LM 20 Clarence Seedorf

AM 22 Kaká

CF 7 Andriy Shevchenko

CF 11 Hernán Crespo

 

At one point in their careers, if not necessarily in 2005 all of those players could claim to be world class in their position. Perhaps it's pushing it a bit to include Gattuso, but still, what a team.

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That turn and pass by Kaka and the finish by Crespo for their third was out of this world. One of the all-time great European goals. Shame it counted for nothing, ho ho.

 

Judging by what I've read so far this Pirlo autobiography is shaping up to be a cracking read.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/andrea-pirlo-deportivo-la-corua-were-so-crazy-they-may-have-been-on-drugs-to-topple-ac-milan-in-champions-league-quarterfinal-9259877.html

 

From the panel with pictures and quotes:

 

"I spent the afternoon of Sunday, July 9, 2006 in Berlin sleeping and playing the PlayStation. In the evening, I went out and won the World Cup."

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At one point in their careers, if not necessarily in 2005 all of those players could claim to be world class in their position. Perhaps it's pushing it a bit to include Gattuso, but still, what a team.

Thank fuck they didnt have jimmy trarore

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