Pirlo s profile could not be much higher, having competed in the Champions League final in May 2015 and then embarking on a new career signing with MLS side New York City FC in July 2015. The vibrancy, humor and vivid insight that carry Pirlo s autobiography along confounds his image as a dead-eyed assassin on the field of play. All the big names are in there: Lippi, Ancelotti, Conte, Maldini, Shevchenko, Seedorf, Buffon, Kaka, Nesta, Costacurta, Gattuso, Berlusconi and Ronaldo ( the real one ). But they re not always in their work clothes. We hear Berlusconi playing the piano and telling various types of joke at Milan s training ground. We see Pirlo and Daniele De Rossi drawing Nesta s ire as they take him on a mystery tour of the German countryside in a hire car days before a World Cup semi-final. And we smell the aftermath of Filippo Inzaghi s graphically described pre-match routine."