Even as you read this, the blue-eyed boy of Italian soccer, Paolo Maldini, will be getting ready to end his glorious career with AC Milan today. Son of former Milan skipper, coach and also Italian national coach Cesare Maldini, the handsome Paolo played 24 seasons on the trot and made nearly 1,000 appearances in a Rossoneri shirt before he bowed out.
It is a tribute to this gentleman-defender that he has seen through his remarkable career without a red card to his name. Bookings are part of any player’s daily grind but a sending off — never in Maldini’s case. The fact that he has never been condemned to an early shower throughout his career of 24 years is even more remarkable as he is defender and prone to employ rough and tumble tactics to stop highly skilled strikers or winged wonders on the flanks.
A brilliant reader of the game, Maldini cut off the opposition’s feeder lines before they assumed dangerous proportions. Equipped with an otherworldly positional sense, he was also always on hand to cover up for his colleagues’ absence in times of need. Maldini was also a superb player on the overlap and provided splendid crosses or passes to his forwards.
Often he would pop up on the blind side of the op position defence to head home or provide an inchperfect pass for a shot at the goal. Italy’s defensive mode of football suited him to a ‘T’ as he was a bit sl ow in moving and ventured upfront only when the chips were down. Maldini, among the FIFA 125 greatest living players, comes from a football nation that gave the world defenders of the calibre of Tarcisio Burgnich, the fa m ous Italian who marked Pele in the 1970 World Cup, Giacinto Facchetti, who redefined the role of a full back and Roberto Rosato, a key part of the Italy team that won the 1968 European Championships. Or Claudio Gentile, one of the toughest and roughest
defenders in the history and his colleague at Juventus, Gaetano Scirea, who was all grace and poise. Or Maldini’s skipper at Milan Franco Baresi, acknowledged as one of the greatest defenders and Alessandro Nesta and Fabio Cannavaro in recent years.
Despite Italy boasting of a galaxy of legendary de fe nders, Maldini carved out a niche for himself as one of the cleanest and shrewdest tacklers in the game. Maldini’s long career began in 1985 and is coming to a fantastic end in 2009, during which he has won everything but the World Cup. Italy finished 3rd in the 1990 World Cup, were runners-up in 1994, lost in the quarterfinals in 1998 and went out in the second round in 2002, all campaigns that had Maldini in the defence. Cruelly, he had retired by time of the 2006 World Cup, when Italy won it for the fourth time.
It was Maldini’s successor as Italy captain, Fabio Cannavaro, who led the team to glory in Germany. Somehow, despite being the most capped Italian with 126 national team appearances, Maldini was not destined for WC glory.
Incidentally, Maldini was adjudged the Footballer of the Year in 1994 and he was modest enough to say that while “defenders hardly get such awards, it should have gone to Franco Baresi some time back.” His humility and determination stand out as his best qualities. This is borne out when he says he wants to be remembered as an honest and successful player. Ironically, Maldini was a huge fan of Juventus in his younger days when he worked as a DJ for a radio network. Juve star Roberto Bettega was a boyhood hero.
Maldini joined the AC Milan youth programme and no sooner he got to make his debut in 1985 against Udinese, at 16, he proved his class in no uncertain terms. From the 1985-86 season onwards he became a permanent fixture in the Milan defence. The rest, as they say, is glorious history. Milan’s England international Ray Wilkins, one of the club’s senior midfielders, had this to say of Maldini: “As soon as I saw him I thought, my God, this boy’s got everything. He was just 16 years old, tall, quick and strong. And he was in love with football, wh ich you can still see today. He’s al so stayed the same thoroughly de cent bloke, a gentleman as well as an outstanding player.”
Maldini’s international career began with the Italian U-21 squad in the 1986-87 season and he soon graduated to the senior ranks in 1988. Ever since his debut against Yugoslavia that year, he became an automatic choice as a wing back, on the left or the right and at times even as s central defender for the Azzurri till his retirement from international football in 2002. With Milan, Maldini won, among other honours, the Serie A seven times, the Champions League five times, the UEFA Super Cup and the Italian Super Cup five times each and the Copa Italia once. Maldini’s best career season was probably 1993-94, when Milan won the European Cup and Italy were runnersup in the World Cup, losing to Brazil on penalties in Los Angeles. In 1994 he also won the prestigious World Soccer Payer of the Year award — the first time a defender was chosen for that honour.
Among the best defenders the game has known, Maldini has raised the bar several notches. It will be a long time before another Maldini surfaces and reaches those lofty heights. His son Christian, who is with the Milan junior team, might just to keep the Maldini tradition on.
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