Andrea Pirlo will be remembered as one of the greatest midfielders of his generation thanks to all those successful years playing in Serie A and with the Italian national team.Now 38, Pirlo is in the twilight of his footballing career and, naturally, will be mulling over when he should hang up his boots.The World Cup winner has been playing in Major League Soccer for the past two years now, with New York City FC, and there have been highs and lows.However, it’s abundantly clear that Pirlo is now well past his best.And we saw another example of this being the case during New York City FC’s 1-0 defeat against Portland Timbers at the Yankee Stadium on Saturday night.

Pirlo's shocking reaction after losing the ball

Pirlo was responsible for the only goal of the game - but for all the wrong reasons.

The former AC Milan and Juventus star was dispossessed by Darren Mattocks and angrily span around towards the referee and demanded a free-kick.

The ref, however, waved play on. Mattocks then squared the ball to Diego Valeri, who converted past the hosts’ goalkeeper Sean Johnson.

Watch the incident here...

How Twitter reacted

Nobody on Twitter could believe what they’d just witnessed - and some people even believe it might be time for Pirlo to retire…

Vieira refuses to blame Pirlo for the defeat

It came as no surprise that Pirlo was the first New York City FC player to be substituted in the second half.

Head coach Patrick Vieira subbed the Italian off for Sean Okoli but his side, who currently sit second in the MLS Eastern Conference, was unable to find the equalising goal.

“I think it happened that he lost the ball. It just so happened that this time it was Andrea," Vieira was quoted as saying by Goal.com after the match. "A lot of players have lost the ball in a really difficult area, but it happened that we conceded the goal. That’s part of the game. You make a mistake and you get punished right away.

“We have players who make mistakes and make the wrong decision, and sometimes we concede the goal and sometimes we don’t concede the goal, but that is not the reason why we lost the game.”