Andrea Pirlo... top performer in the Serie A.

Andrea Pirlo has been voted Italy’s best player by his peers for the third year in a row.

The Juventus and Italy playmaker has received the Italian Professional Footballers’ Association (AIC) trophy during a gala in Milan.

The 35-year-old, who has joined Zlatan Ibrahimovic as the only player to have earned the title three times, has won the award every year since joining the Turin club from Milan in 2011.

“I’m very honoured,” Pirlo told the Italian media.

“It’s always a great pleasure to win this award. It means that I have done a good job and that I am maintaining myself at the highest level.

“I would like to thank all of my colleagues who have voted for me.”

Pirlo, who becomes the oldest player to have won the award, was also included in the best team selection of the 2013-14 campaign.

Six other Juve players Gianluigi Buffon, Kwadwo Asamoah, Andrea Barzagli, Paul Pogba, Arturo Vidal and Carlos Tevez also made the ideal line-up.

Italy captain Buffon was also named as last season’s best goalkeeper in Serie A while team-mate Tevez was named as the best striker.

Antonio Conte, who led Juve to a third straight scudetto before resigning this summer to take over the Italy post, was named as the best coach ahead of Roma’s Rudi Garcia and Fiorentina’s Vincenzo Montella.

“It was a fantastic journey which brought me to becoming national team coach,” Conte said.

“It was an extraordinary journey with these players, to whom I owe everything.”

Napoli’s Gonzalo Higuain, Torino’s Matteo Darmian as well as former Torino forward Ciro Immobile, currently at Borussia Dortmund, and ex-Roma centre-back Mehdi Benatia, now at Bayern Munich, completed the best team selection.

Serie A top XI
G. Buffon; M. Darmian, A. Barzagli, M. Benatia, K. Asamoah; P. Pogba, A. Pirlo, A. Vidal; C. Immobile, G. Higuain, C. Tevez.