After a career spanning nearly two decades and 659 appearances, Italy’s 2006 World-Cup winning captain Fabio Cannavaro has retired with immediate effect as a result of persistent knee injury.  He will remain at Al Ahli for the next three years, taking up the role of technical adviser.

Cannavaro’s first taste of success came on the international scene when he triumphed with the Italy U-21 side in 1994 and 1996 in the European U-21 Championships. Cannavaro had been a ball-boy during the 1990 World Cup final when Italy lost to Argentina in Naples. He played for his local club Napoli before his transfer to Parma, where he struck an excellent relationship with French 1998 World-Cup winner Lilian Thuram, notably winning the UEFA Cup and 2 Coppa Italia. His alliance with Alessandro Nesta provided the bed-rock for Italy at Euro 2000 as they came within seconds of winning it – an injury time equaliser by Sylvain Wiltord taking the game to extra-time before David Trezeguet smashed the golden goal home. Cannavaro moved to Inter in 2002 but an unsuccessful two-year stint there prompted him to move to Juventus.

At the Bianconeri he reunited with Lilian Thuram to form another excellent partnership winning two consecutive Scudetti in 2005 and 2006 (which were stripped in the summer of 2006 after Calciopoli trial and Juventus were relegated to Serie B) and Serie A Defender of the Year awards to go along with the Scudetti. He dominated the 2006 World Cup with a series of terrific performances – Italy only conceded two goals in seven games during that World Cup, one was an own goal in the group stages and the other was a penalty. Impressively, he played every single minute for Italy in the tournament and didn’t receive a single card. His crowning performancec came in the semi-final against Germany where many of the qualities which have made him a top defender were on show: a combination of anticipation and perfect positioning, pace and agility, aerial ability and timing of the challenge. Indeed, it was his robust interception which kick-started the move to the killer goal by Alessandro Del Piero. For many critics he was the best player at the 2006 World Cup, but UEFA weren’t one of the ‘many’ and awarded the award to Zinedine Zidane instead. Fabio Cannavaro was awarded with the European Footballer of the Year and the FIFA World Player of the Year awards. With Juventus relegated due to Calciopoli, Cannavaro moved to Real Madrid due to his desire to work with Fabio Capello, there he won two consecutive La Liga titles. In 2009 he made a return to Juventus for a season before he moved to Al Ahli. Cannavaro announced his retirement from international football after the 2010 World Cup in South Africa following Italy’s failure to progress past the group stage.

Style of Play

Being tall is regarded as one of the basic requirements to being a central defender. Despite being only 1.77m tall (or short, should we say), Cannavaro routinely out-jumped much taller men, or cleared elegantly with an overhead kick. To compensate for his height (or lack of), he built upper body strength – especially his arms.  Cannavaro believed a defender –especially of his mould – needed strong arms in order to direct the striker where he wants him to be, before intercepting the ball. Here is what he had to say about his height in an interview with FourFourTwo:

“In the beginning people were sceptical about my height, but my jumping and pace compensated. I was originally a right-midfielder, anyway. I was playing in the semi-final of a national U-17 competition, they had a great forward and the coach asked me to follow him everywhere – that’s how I started as a defender. I learnt man-to-man and developed anticipation and my jumping. Besides,” he adds, “it’s more about timing than height. That’s the key to my game. Everything, but everything, is about timing and that’s not something you learn – it’s innate.”

In his book The Football Men: Up Close with the Giants of the Modern Game, Simon Kuper recalls: “When his colleague Marco Materazzi permitted a German shot in the semi-final [at the 2006 World Cup], Cannavaro stood beneath the giant, lectured him and then slapped him in the face.” Cannavaro, like all the great centre backs, didn’t merely defend but organised his defensive unit with his high standards.

An All-Time Great

It was fitting that Fabio Cannavaro lifted the World Cup in his hundredth game for Italy. He will be remembered as one of the greatest defenders to ever grace the beautiful game and arguably the best Italian defender of all time. He knew how good he was at his prime. Asked in an interview at Euro 2000 to name the best defenders participating in the competition, he answered “After myself and Nesta, I think the Frenchman Thuram.”

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