10 best excerpts from Andrea Pirlo's 'I Think, Therefore I Play'

#5 ‘...How can an employer change the terms of a contract at will’

Pirlo’s logic rings true and sound throughout the book, and he is never afraid to make his point. Men of his stature don’t bow down to manipulative people, and he makes that amply clear in chapter 7, in which he talks about how his name ‘Pirlo’ – a rather disgusting play of the world pirla (meaning penis in Italian) – has affected his life.

After talking quite affectionately about Gennaro Gattuso, whom he positively adores, Pirlo proceeds to question the very structure of football clubs with these statements:

“Are you telling me that the big cheeses, after organizing all kinds of clandestine dinners and secret meetings to get a player to their club and then showering him with gold, can suddenly ask for it all back? Are they not liars, those guys who, when it came down to it, weren’t capable of keeping their word? How can an employer change at will the terms of a contract he himself set out?”

He is clearly not a man who holds himself back from speaking the truth.