8 Footballers Who Proved Everybody Wrong

Over a near quarter-century career, Andrea Pirlo matured as a player like the fine red wine he almost certainly spends his evenings quaffing, eventually coming to resemble a Tolkienesque ent, roots planted firmly in midfield as his limbs scattered wisdom across the pitch.

Though always highly regarded in Italy, first as the Prince of Brescia and later Kaka's minder in a dazzling Milan side, when Pirlo's apparent twilight beckoned, few predicted it was in fact the beginning of a new dawn. That included Rossoneri president Adriano Galliani, who let the midfielder leave the San Siro for nothing at the expiration of his contract.

"Letting Pirlo go was my biggest mistake," the veteran chairman later admitted. After leaving the club in 2011, Pirlo alighted in Turin, where he crystalised into a sophisticated, elegant caresser of the football, conducting the overture to new club Juventus' subsequent decade of success - unprecedented even by their standards. Along the way, he made international observers swoon when he sent Joe Hart to the shops and back with the most impudent Panenka at Euro 2012.

The actual end came in 2017. This time, the football world lamented Pirlo hanging his staff up six years after he was supposedly 'finished'.