Why I love... Andrea Pirlo's fireball
This is my favorite tweet of the last few months.
It consists of eight characters, two emojis and one picture. But there is so much going on.
Like most of the truly outstanding social media posts, it is artistic, simple and very, very cool.
Of course it fits with the persona of Andrea Pirlo, a footballer’s footballer who has received more appreciation and better haircuts as his career has gone on.
In his twilight playing years, he is bossing the midfield for New York City FC and the maestro was in the middle of his offseason when he posted this on January 2. In his timeline, it was surrounded by more staid but satisfactory pictures of la familia Pirlo on holiday.
Single word tweets can have an incredible impact if they accompany the right image. And, of course, emojis add a tonal layer with minimal clutter.
Who knows if Pirlo was advised to post this. For all I know, it was staged-managed and market-tested to within an inch of its life.
But 90,000 retweets and likes would suggest many of us think this is simply Pirlo being Pirlo with another perfectly-timed contribution to the game.
Bravissimo, Andrea.
* Why I Love… is a regular series on MrRichardClarke.com celebrating the good, great or just different in digital sport. Criticism and deconstruction is easy, creativity and effective execution is hard. Let’s support those who concentrate on the latter.
