SCOTT Brown has shared a football pitch with Andrea Pirlo four times, for a total of 242 minutes.
They were on opposing sides for two Champions League group games when Celtic faced AC Milan in 2007 and two Euro 2008 qualifiers when Scotland played Italy in the same year. It would be putting it mildly to suggest that Brown is not easily impressed or troubled by what an opponent can do, but the prospect of again facing the great playmaker drew the Celtic captain into the most respectful and enthusiastic analysis yesterday.
When Celtic take on Juventus in the last 16 of the Champions League on February 12 and March 6, their prospects of reaching the quarter-finals will surely centre on the ability of Brown and his midfield team-mates to suppress and subdue Pirlo's orchestrations. The Italian, 33 and seemingly maturing like a fine wine, joined Juventus last year after a decade with Milan. He continues a career in which he has won the World Cup, the Champions League twice, and Serie A three times.
"Pirlo is right up there with anyone I've played against," said Brown. "If you saw him in the European Championship, he was phenomenal. He was as good a midfielder as I've seen. He is the one who gets everyone ticking and his vision on the ball, his intelligence, and his passing, are second to none. I've played against him before in the Champions League and it was hard home and away.
"You just have to get round about him and stop him playing, because he is their main man. He starts everything and when he gets on the ball his awareness is second to none. If we can try to stop him and press them high up the park we have a chance. If we let him have a lot of space to do pretty much whatever he wants, it's not going to be the best situation for us."
How did Brown believe he would get on against Pirlo? "You have to show a bit of respect to everybody but at the end of the day it is me versus him and I want to win more than he does. Hopefully we will come out with the victory on the day, but it is going to be hard. It will be a great occasion to play against him."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article