Former Roma, Real Madrid, Milan, Sampdoria and Italy forward Antonio Cassano surprised fans Tuesday by reportedly mooting a shock retirement only to deny it at a press conference at his new club Verona.
"I want to continue this challenge and I'm 100% convinced
that I will win it," said the unpredictable 35-year-old.
Asked why he had been considering hanging up his boots, the
playmaker replied "this morning I had a moment of weakness, a
drop, but then I thought it over".
The episode, which observers quickly dubbed another of his
'Cassanate' pranks, came a week after signing from Samp for
newly promoted Serie A side Verona.
Verona had scrubbed Tuesday afternoon training sessions to
allow the player to make his official retirement announcement.
Cassano was said to have taken the decision after deciding
that he could no longer play as well as he would like at a top
level.
Throughout his career Cassano has been known for off-beat
temper tantrums and fits of ill discipline for which former Roma
and England coach Fabio Capello coined the widely used term
"Cassanata".
One of the most gifted players of his generation, his career
has been dogged by disciplinary problems and rows with coaches
and he has won relatively few trophies for a footballer of his
potential.
Cassano's temper tantrums have been so numerous that the
Italian press adopted Capello's coinage in calling them
'Cassanate' - a play on the widely used swear word 'cazzata',
meaning f**k-up.
After exhausting the patience of his coaches at AS Roma and
Real Madrid, he looked to have become a reformed character after
joining Sampdoria in 2008.
He once famously gave a referee who had sent him off the
'horns' gesture, which is an Italian way of telling someone they
are a cuckold, and went on to throw his shirt at him and
threaten to wait for him for a fight after the game.
But otherwise he was mostly on good behaviour while
playing for the Genoa side before he lost his temper with late
club chairman Riccardo Garrone, calling him an "old shit", among
other things.
That spat lead to a dispute that ended with Cassano
joining AC Milan in 2011.
Cassano spent much of his time at Milan recovering from an
operation to fix a heart defect that caused him to have a minor
stroke in 2011, so it was a relatively uneventful stint in terms
of 'Cassanate'.
He moved to Inter in 2012 but did not stay longer than one
season following a big training ground bust-up with former coach
Andrea Stramaccioni.
After Inter, he had spells at Inter and then back at his the
club he probably felt most at home at, Sampdoria.
The player, who comes from a deprived area of the southern
Italian city of Bari, is cheerful and entertaining in his
infrequent press interviews, although his controversial opinions
have got him into trouble.
He was fined after causing an outcry during Euro 2012 by
saying he hoped there were no gay players in the Italy team and
using a derogatory term, 'froci', to describe homosexuals.
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