But if there is not something interesting to see, I find a new game to watch. “They can do it well, or not so well, but I want them to try.

“I want to see teams doing something positive,” he said. And so, he admits, he finds it intensely difficult, if not impossible, to watch a game if it does not bring him pleasure.

That does not come with an off button, either. “Anything that might help me do my job,” he said.īut while Pirlo is now a manager by trade, he remains every inch an aesthete by inclination. Everything is research, revision, for that moment. His appetite for coaching remains undimmed by his experience in Turin he will, he knows, return at some point. Instead, he tries to distill from what he is seeing some idea, some concept, some notion that might come in useful somewhere down the line. He does not watch passively, losing himself in the thrill of the game. After two consecutive losses against Atalanta and. Having started the 200607 Serie A season with an eight-point penalty due to the Calciopoli scandal, a poor run of results during which Milan only registered one win in nine matches left them in a lowly 15th place on only 11 points. It might be almost a year since his first foray into management was ended, abruptly and unceremoniously, by Juventus, but being a manager is less a job and more a lifestyle choice, like being a monk, or a double agent. The 200607 season has had its ups and downs for Milan. Officially, whenever Andrea Pirlo has watched soccer over the course of the last year or so, it has been for work, rather than merely for pleasure.