On 20th January 1985, a young Italian walked onto the football pitch to substitute Sergio Battistini while playing against Udinese. Not many knew him as Paolo but as Cesare's son. Today, he is rated as the best defender to have ever played the beautiful game. He has been a great servant to the club, loyal as you can get. A patron of the game. I am honored and privileged to have witnessed this great player, who even in his last season, at the age of 41, was regarded as the one of the best defenders in defensively the strongest league in the world.
I am blessed, as I got to watch this movie based on Paolo Maldini, not much before I decided to pen down my thoughts on this blog. If you have read my blog often you would know i have often criticized Maldini throughout the season, but it was out of sheer frustration. What he managed to do at this age over the last couple of seasons, is as a matter of fact overwhelming. So my apologies for anyone who got offended.
In his long list of silverware, he won 7 Scudetti, 1 Coppa Italia, 5 Supercoppa Italiana, 5 Uefa Champions League, 5 Uefa Super Cups, 2 Intercontinental cups and One Fifa World Club Cup. He won 126 caps between 1988-2002. He retired from international football after 8 years of captaining the side. Maldini became the first ever defender to win the World Soccor magazine's, World Player of the Year award. On 25th September 2005, Maldini broke Dino Zoff's Serie A appearance record after playing his 571st league game against Treviso. He described his career's worst moment as losing to Liverpool in Istanbul in the 2005 finals. In this game, he became the fastest scorer in European Clubs' Cup final, and also became the oldest player to score in an European Final. On the 18th of April 2009, Maldini made an official declaration, that he will be retiring from professional football at the end of the season. He played his last home game against Roma on the 24th of May 2009, and his last competitive game for the club a week later against Fiorentina.
Maldini has been an icon internationally, and not just domestically. He made his National debut against Yugoslavia on the 31st of March 1988, at the age of 19. 20th January 1993, he scored his first goal against Mexico. He started to captain Italy from the 1994 World Cup where Italy lost to Brazil in the finals on penalties. He was named in the 'Team of the Tournament'. In Euro 2000, he came close to beating France. That was the closest he would get to winning a major international trophy with the Azzuri. Maldini retired in 2002, after having played a trophyless career over 16 years, scoring 7 goals, and having worn the armband for a record 74 times. Maldini, in February 2009, played down the talk of a testimonial game in his honor, saying he would only play an 'official match'.
Paolo Maldini has brought great inspiration to the trifosi, to the board, to the players and to football in general. His captaincy and his presence will be missed, dearly. His influence on the players, his class, and his ability is already immortalised. He leaves Milan, and a new era is about to begin. New defenders will come, great players will be born. But they wont be one with as much flair, there wont be one with as much grace, there wont be another Maldini.
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