Caressing the ball was something I had to do. I then lifted my eyes to the heavens and asked for help because if God exists, there’s no way he’s French.

I took a long, intense breath. That breath was mine, but it could have been the manual worker who struggles to make it to the end of the month, the rich businessman who’s a bit of a shit, the teacher, the student, the Italian expats who never left our side during the tournament, the well-to-do Milanese signora, the hooker on the street corner. In that moment, I was all of them.

You won’t believe me, but it was right in that very moment I understood what a great thing it is to be Italian. It’s a truly priceless privilege. I never got the same understanding from the empty speeches of the politicians. They don’t know what they’re talking about as they grab and stick their snouts in the trough. Nor did I experience the same emotion in the history books I’ve studied - perhaps because all too often I kept them closed and allowed the dust to build up. My parents were right when they said that was a big mistake.

Never would I have thought the instant before taking a penalty could open my mind so marvellously and give me this higher understanding. I saw the inner workings of a motor car that was imperfect, full of defects, badly driven, old and worn, and yet utterly unique. Italy’s a country you love precisely because it’s like that.

My penalty went in. Even if I’d missed, the lesson would have remained. Perhaps it would actually have been amplified by the resulting desperation. It’s incredible to know that what you’re feeling is shared by millions of people in the same way, at the same time, for the same reasons, in cities that moments before were rivals or at least too dissimilar to find any sort of common ground. That lukewarm shiver a second before I stuck the ball in the net is the most vivid sensation I’ve ever felt.

Andrea Pirlo (about his penalty in the World Cup final vs France on the 9th of July 2006)