Unless youre a boxer, a snooker player or happen to be Super Hans off Peep Show, elaborate nicknames are justifiably pathetic. Ordinarily, nicknames consist of whatever your surname is and shoving the letter y at the end of it. Which is fine. Not so for Andrea Pirlo who has a marvellous collection of highly admissible monikers attributed to him that are tied to his genius. Take your pick: The Architect, The Conductor, The Metronome, The Professor. Even the slightly less elegant The Bearded Gent is reassuringly acceptable enough to make you want to gaze at his face for hours at a time. Even more so when you compare them to those of his world class peers: Manuel Neuers is Manu which is indescribably predictable; Franck Riberys Scarface nickname would be slightly more impressive if it wasnt something of an attack on his physical appearance. And what of the two best players on Earth? Leo Messis is The Atomic Flea which would be fine if he was a baddie in a deliriously violent video game. And Ronaldo? Ronnie. Okay It sounds about as suave as a handjob in an East End bus shelter. Good one, CR7. Youre not pulling pints in a Cockney knocking shop, you know. Pirlo has the lot of you