The Fiver | The kind of footballing hard man other footballing hard men kneel before

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In his book, I Think Therefore I Play, Andrea Pirlo recalls his b@nter-tastic times with the Italian national team and one particularly jolly jape he and Daniele De Rossi used to play on another team-mate. One would hide under the player in question’s bed while another would go in his wardrobe, then the pair would wait as long as it took for the player in question to enter his room and get ready for bed and slip between the covers. “Just as he was about to fall asleep, Daniele would reach up from under the bed and grab his sides, while I’d burst out of the wardrobe like the worst kind of lover, making horrendous noises,” wrote Pirlo. Considering the target of their practical joke was Gennaro “Rino” Gattuso, one can’t help but wonder who the real victims were. “Rino took it really well, despite risking massive heart-attacks,” wrote Pirlo. “First he’d beat up Daniele and then he’d do the same to me, just to prove he was even-handed.” On other occasions, Pirlo added, Gattuso would stab team-mates making fun of him during meal-times with a kitchen fork, sometimes causing wounds so serious the objects of his revenge were unable to train.

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from Football | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/nov/27/the-kind-of-footballing-hard-man-other-footballing-hard-men-kneel-before