Liverpool pair of Henderson and Gerrard tasked with Pirlo, ‘world’s greatest player’

The central midfield pair at Liverpool, Jordan Henderson and Steven Gerrard, must now deal with the peerless Andrea Pirlo, dubbed 'world's greatest' by none other than Paul Scholes.

Andrea Pirlo, in blue, ran England ragged at the European Championships in 2012. Christopher Lee / Getty Images

Paul Scholes, the English footballer of the past 15 years who probably drew more admiration than any other among his professional contemporaries abroad, made an outing into the world of punditry just before the World Cup.

As a player, which Scholes stopped being last year, he was famously taciturn. As an ex-player with an eye on a career in coaching, he has gradually become more forthcoming with his opinions.

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Looking ahead to England’s opening match of the World Cup, against Italy tonight, Scholes blogged last week: “Italy’s Andrea Pirlo is the world’s greatest playmaker. Give him time and space and he will destroy you.”

It was essential, Scholes said, that England manager Roy Hodgson designate a specific sentry to Pirlo, to adhesively track and close down the Azzurri midfielder, if England are to combat Italy’s best passer and chief creator.

The influence Pirlo, of Italian champions Juventus, can exert should be only too familiar to Hodgson.

Scholes cited the last competitive meeting between the two countries, a quarter-final at Euro 2012, which Italy won in a penalty shoot-out, as evidence of what can go wrong if Pirlo is not man-marked.

“We paid nowhere near enough attention to him. He had more passes [131] than all of England’s four midfielders,” Scholes said.

The way to combat Pirlo is to shadow him tirelessly, in the manner Scholes’s former club Manchester United did during a Uefa Champions League match tie against Pirlo’s then-club, AC Milan, in 2010.

Scholes remembers how, ahead of that match, the United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson “gave specific instructions on how to take care of Pirlo”. He told the energetic Korean, Park Ji-sung, to transform into Pirlo’s jailer.

“Park,” Scholes recalled, “was the perfect man, never gave Pirlo a kick, and frustrated him.”

United won the tie 7-2.

Pirlo remembers that encounter, too. In his autobiography, I Think Therefore I Play, he has plenty to say about the policing of Park and about man-marking in general.

“The first nuclear-charged South Korean,” is how Pirlo described Park that night. “He hurtled around the field as fast as an electron, this way and that. He had his hands all over my back, reminding me he was there and trying to intimidate me.

“He’d been programmed solely to stop me and that was his only intention. He had agreed to be employed as a guard dog, even though he was a well-known player in his own right.”

Scholes’s recollection is accurate: Pirlo was frustrated by the experience.

“Alex Ferguson is a perfect manager in most ways,” Pirlo wrote, “but that night he spoiled his reputation for a while, telling a player to destroy instead of creating.”

Pirlo may regard man-marking as an affront to stylish football, a demeaning of the game he loves, but he concedes the number of times he is singled out by opponents as the chief threat can be flattering.

“Coaches must be frightened of me, or else they would not use these tactics,” he said.

In the qualification phase of this World Cup, Pirlo directly confronted one such pursuer, a midfielder from Malta, Andre Schembri, who was marking him: “You’ve been kicking me up and down the field and you haven’t even touched the ball. How about actually playing?”

According to Pirlo, Schembri replied: “That’s out of the question. My coach said the one thing I must do is mark you. Nothing more.”

Hodgson is unlikely to give any England player tonight the same stark directive, especially given the venue, as the hot, humid conditions at Manaus would render the task of constant chase excessively sapping. Nor, in those conditions, would England anticipate Pirlo, 35, being as mobile as he was in Kiev, where he ran 11.5 kilometres during the two hours.

Nonetheless, the need to inhibit Pirlo must inform England’s preparations.

Danny Welbeck, who has speed, energy and a rapidly developing understanding of the modern striker’s need to press from the front when the opposition are in possession, might contribute valuably.

When Pirlo takes up advanced positions, with colleague Daniele De Rossi offering his support in a deeper midfield role, the task of limiting Pirlo’s passing threat would likely fall to Jordan Henderson, the Liverpool player whom Hodgson seems to favour as partner to Steven Gerrard in England’s central midfield.

“It’s not just about one player,” Pirlo said when the Italy squad arrived in Brazil.

If he begins to imagine it is, he will do his best to respond, up his game a gear and lead his patrollers on an elaborate and exhausting dance.

“I always try to slip away from these guys, look for the spaces and find a way to play my usual game,” Pirlo wrote, “even if they’ve tried to put chains around my ankles.”

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