The phrase ‘rent free’ is one of the more head-bangingly inane of modern football’s lexicon.
Yet how else can you describe Andrea Pirlo’s description of Park Ji-sung in his refreshingly blunt autobiography Penso Quindi Gioco (I Think Therefore I Play)?
“[Sir Alex] is a man without blemish, but he ruined that purity just for a moment when it came to me,” Pirlo wrote. “A fleeting shabbiness came over the legend that night. At Milan, he unleashed Park Ji-sung to shadow me.
“[Park] rushed about at the speed of an electron. He’d fling himself at me, his hands all over my back, trying to intimidate me.
“He’d look at the ball and not know what it was for. They’d programmed him to stop me. His devotion to the task was almost touching. Even though he was a famous player, he consented to being used as a guard dog.”
The night in question was actually the two legs of a Champions League last-16 tie between Manchester United and AC Milan in 2010.
Pirlo still remembered the occasion years later like a man whose diet consists solely of sour grapes and pints of bitter.
It’s no secret that Sir Alex Ferguson was the greatest manager of his generation. Whether he was more of a chalker or a talker is up for debate, but his instructions to Park before walking out at the San Siro combined both sides of his management.
“Your job today is not about touching the ball, it’s not about making passes, your job is Pirlo. That’s all. Pirlo,” Ferguson told Park, as Wayne Rooney recalled in a recent column for The Sunday Times.
Park possessed the required diligence, discipline and man-marking skills to contain the Italy midfielder. Signed for £4million from PSV Eindhoven in 2005, the South Korea captain had carved out a niche as a key cog in Ferguson’s winning machine.
Paul Scholes, a man so English he smelt of milky tea yet was the closest domestic equivalent to Pirlo, was effusive about Park’s qualities having experienced the Italian’s pain in Manchester United training.
“Do you know who the worst one was? Park Ji-sung. He was a nightmare! He was unbelievable,” Scholes told MUTV.
“He just used to come up to me, look at me and not say a word, stand right next to me… ‘Oh Jesus, here we go!’ ‘Come on, ginge!’ – Just say something to me, have a laugh with me!
“But he was unbelievable at it. He just used to come and stare right into my face, stare right into my eyes, ‘You’re not getting a kick today.’”
“I’m sure…
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