Andrea Pirlo has seen it all and done it all. After one final Champions League final, he rode off into the sunset to live out the final years of his elegant footballing twilight in the chic surroundings of Manhattan.

With David Villa and Frank Lampard in front of him, Pirlo has two of the very best of his own generation available for his delicious passes and grand-master like reading of the game. And now that Patrick Vieira is at the helm of New York City, there’s another stellar name in MLS alongside him.

But Pirlo is surely finding the level a little low on quality. Given his own level, given the fact that he was so important to Juventus last season as they reached the Champions League final, given the fact that when you take him out of that Juve team, they crumble and disintegrate, given the fact that in last season’s Champions League, he’s one of the players who covered the most distance on the football pitch.

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Given all of that, Pirlo must surely feel like he has more to give than to MLS. Even if it’s growing exponentially year on year in terms of support and quality, Pirlo must surely feel - on a footballing level if not a personal level - that a return to Europe in the January transfer window is for him.

And there’s one reason in particular for thinking that - Euro 2016.

In the last Euros, Pirlo was the best player in the tournament. He bested everyone except for Spain, the winners, and in one particularly memorable instance, owned his current club’s parent club goalkeeper Joe Hart.

Well, if Pirlo wants a return to the Italy squad - and he may well fancy that particular final swansong, given the way he talks about current Italy manager and former Juventus manager Antonio Conte in his book - then Pirlo should start thinking about accepting that move to Manchester City and placing a few more panenkas over Joe Hart in training.

The European level is clearly higher than in the US, that much is obvious, but there’s also a clear bias in Europe. We simply don’t regard their league at all. It’s snobbery of the highest calibre - even if there’s some truth to it.

We regard those players playing in the US to be part of football’s biggest retirement home, a home for the grand old men, a place where they can leisurely play the game they love, look like the superstars they are for a few more years, and make a shed-load of cash. What’s more, they get to spend it in New York. Imagine a man as elegant and stylish as Pirlo being let loose in Bloomingdales. Paradise.

There may be some truth to the stereotype. MLS is growing but definitely not there yet. But that doesn’t mean that Pirlo is past it.

If he comes back to Europe for a final few months and shows the Premier League what they’ve been missing for years, then he’ll have a shot at showing the whole of Europe what they’re missing this summer.

If he doesn’t he may have just ridden off completely into the sunset, never to be seen again. As a player at least.

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