David Pizarro came in to shore up Man City 2011/12 title charge but was dispensed with after United pulled eight points clear with six games to go.
Pep Guardiola and Roberto Mancini are the two towering figures of the modern Manchester City and the two celebrated tacticians are generally noted for their contrasts.
A very strange year where Mancini – once noted for his typically Italian pragmatic streak – led his country to Euro 2020 glory playing in a free-flowing Spanish style and Guardiola’s majestic City team started to be labelled as “boring” might have muddied the waters a little.
However, Mancini did always have a touch of romance about his footballing vision. A majestic, off-the-cuff forward during his imperial playing days at Sampdoria, at City he eschewed the traditional English approach of orthodox wingers in favour of giving David Silva and Samir Nasri license to roam in tandem from the flanks.
Roberto’s affinity with a playing style very much in line with the Guardiola methodology got its strangest airing on January 31, 2012.
Locked in a knife-edge title battle with Manchester United, City signed David Pizarro on loan from Roma until the end of the season. It was an acquisition that would no doubt have drawn a nod of approval from Pep the purist but, in the context of Mancini’s City, it made very little sense whatsoever.
Pizarro was 32 when he moved to Manchester. A decade on, he remains City’s most recent deadline-day signing in the mid-season window.
The Chile international was a player very much of his generation. The sort of squat South American playmaker with a sparkling touch who would often find a home in Europe, delighting crowds in warmer Mediterranean settings.
Pizarro did just that for over a decade in Serie A, first with Udinese before first working under Mancini at Inter. He then made over 200 appearances for Roma. During this time, he worked his way backwards from being a number 10 to holding midfielder – a transition dictated as much by decreasing mobility as it was his exquisite passing range.
Which leads to the obvious conclusion that Mancini signed Pizarro simply because he really liked him. He certainly did not fit within the broader idea of his City side in the way he might have for, say, a Guardiola team.
Mancini inherited a midfield double pivot of Nigel de Jong and Gareth Barry from Mark Hughes and initially chucked Pablo Zabaleta in with them for good measure. He even played Vincent Kompany there around the time visiting sides were rocking up at Stoke and simply picking all their tallest players to take on Tony Pulis’s men.
Patrick Vieira arrived in Mancini’s first transfer window. Yaya Toure, while a game-changing signing in so many respects, obviously had the physicality his manager required.
Owen Hargreaves’ fitness woes meant he could not be the replacement for the retired Vieira that Mancini desired in 2011, which led to the incongruous capture of Pizarro.
The new recruit made a debut from the bench as City beat Fulham 3-0 in a February blizzard and he also featured as a substitute when Blackburn were dispatched at the Eithad Stadium by the same scoreline.
Pizarro’s standout night in sky blue was another cameo in between those games as he crossed for David Silva to score and rounded off a 4-0 UEFA Cup win over Porto, netting the final goal that came about after a beautiful dinked pass into Edin Dzeko.
The first of two Premier League starts came at the start of March – a 2-0 win over Bolton Wanderers – but his second was in the listless 1-0 loss at Arsenal, where Mario Balotelli was sent off and City fell eight points behind United with six games remaining.
As far as Pizarro was concerned in Manchester, that was more or less that. He was an unused substitute against West Brom next time out and then never made another matchday squad.
He did get to take part in the final day celebrations after Sergio Aguero unforgettably downed QPR. Pizarro could be seen strolling about the Etihad Stadium turf in his City shirt and some comfy tracksuit bottoms, all the better for pocketing a Premier League medal.
By that stage, he was already a forgotten signing in plain sight. A strange footnote to one of City’s greatest ever seasons and a deep-lying playmaker in Manchester confusingly ahead of his time.
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