Outstanding pitch from Capello."I'm great, and I imagine you're even better. Come and join us. We've just signed Emerson from Juventus and you're the man to play beside him in midfield."
Then it was Galliani, staring straight at me. "Andrea, my friend, you're not going anywhere."
He pulled out a little case from under the table. That made me smile, thinking it had been just as well hidden as Monica Lewinsky under Bill Clinton's desk in the Oval Office.
A contract then appeared from the case, with Mr Biro (Galliani) adding, "You're not leaving, because you're going to sign this. It's for five years, and we've left the salary details blank so you can write in whatever you like."
Wasn't all this posted already?
Used to love him, but his book is not cool. Comes across as a complete snake
I no longer felt a footballer and not even a man, I did not have the courage to look in the mirror.
BERLUSCONI AND NO TO CHELSEA - What we do know (and say) is that it was Silvio Berlusconi himself to block his transfer to Chelsea in August 2009. "Ancelotti had just become coach of the Blues and we had already reached an agreement For me Charles is like a father, a teacher, the kind of man who always knows how to keep you entertained. With him I spent the best years of my career and it was therefore the reason why I was accepting the transfer to London, but Berlusconi then pulled out a second sheet of paper, where he had circled the name of Huntelaar and told me that the AC Milan had taken ..... "You can not do this, damn it Andrew, you are the symbol of Milan, we have already sold Kaka and you can not jump ship because it would be a terrible blow to our image ...". But Ancelotti insisted and Pirlo as well, because the other side offered him a four-year to € 5 million per season, and at that point the Milan s'impuntò, asking the Chelsea Branislav Ivanovic to enter into negotiations knowing well that the ' would never have done. And so he jumped everything.
Andrea Pirlo has criticised Sir Alex Ferguson for using Ji-Sung Park to man-mark the Italian in the Champions League in 2010.
The Juventus midfielder was playing for Milan when they were thumped 7-2 on aggregate by United in the last 16 of the Champions League four years ago.
Ferguson ordered South Korean Park to man-mark Pirlo in both legs, a tactic that ultimately paid off.
But Pirlo, writing in his autobiography, insists, for him, it has blemished Ferguson's legacy.
Pirlo said: "Even Sir Alex Ferguson, the purple-nosed manager who turned Manchester United into a fearsome battleship, couldn’t resist the temptation.
"He's a man without blemish, but he ruined that purity just for a moment when it came to me. A fleeting shabbiness came over the legend that night.
"At Milan, he unleashed Park Ji-Sung to shadow me.
"He rushed about at the speed of an electron. He'd fling himself at me, his hands all over my back, trying to intimidate me.
"He'd look at the ball and not know what it was for.
"They'd programmed him to stop me. His devotion to the task was almost touching.
"Even though he was a famous player, he consented to being used as a guard dog."
he didnt get an eraser with his pen
Pirlo: "gattuso would grab a fork and try to stick it in us."Oh and apparently Gattuso used to go around stabbing his team mates with knives and forks in the canteen when they annoyed him, so they confiscated sharp objects when he was around or something
Andrea Pirlo on the night Pep Guardiola tried to sign him for FC Barcelona - "i didn't need to be asked twice. In I went. The room was furnished in sober fashion and there was some red wine on the table. 'always a good start,' I muttered to myself. 'make yourself comfortable, Andrea,' he began, his Italian absolutely perfect. He began to tell me about Barcelona, saying that it's a world apart, a perfect machine that pretty much invented itself. He wore a white shirt and a pair of dark trousers whose colour matched that of his tie. He was elegant in the extreme, much like his conversation. 'thank you for agreeing to meet me. We need you here, Andrea. We're already very strong, I really couldn't ask for better, but you'd be the icing on the cake. We're looking for a midfielder to alternate with Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Sergio Busquets, and that midfielder is you. You've got all the attributes to play for Barcelona, and one in particular – you're world class.'