Best Serie A players of all time
Italian Serie A is one of the oldest and most prestigious professional football leagues in the world, and in this article we intend to introduce the best Serie A players of all time!
The best players in one of the best football leagues in the world: Serie A Italy!
Italian Serie A is one of the most prestigious football leagues in the whole world, which with its old and proud clubs, always hosts world-class players, and its fascinating competitions have thrilled the hearts of millions of football fans not only in Italy, but all over the world.
In the following, we will present a list of best Serie A players ever, and share the personal and professional backgrounds of each of these Serie A legends of all time.
Best Serie A players of all time
Serie A competitions always hosted the best football stars from all over the world. This makes it very difficult to select a short list of the best players.
While apologizing not being able to mention all of these great players, in the following article, we will have a brief overview of the personal and professional characteristics of the Serie A best footballers of all time in our opinion!
Paolo Maldini
The first player of the list of the
best Serie A players ever
, Paolo Maldini was born on June 26, 1968. He never wore the uniform of a club other than Milan, and with 25 years in the A.C. Milan holds the record for the most uniforms in the history of football.
Paolo joined AC Milan at the age of ten. He was a Juventus fan before joining Milan.
On 20 January 1985, he made his debut against Udinese in the second half, replacing the injured Sergio Batistini. He played only one game during the 1984-85 season.
During his 25 seasons in Milan, Paolo Maldini made 902 official appearances for the team in all competitions.
He has appeared in the Champions League final eight times during his career. Paolo has won the Champions League five times.
Maldini played against Fiorentina in his last official match for Milan on 31 May 2009. In the 2–0 win over AC Milan, Maldini was substituted in the 90th minute and was enthusiastically applauded in the stadium as he deserved to be a world champion. In the same year he received a special award for the achievements of a lifetime of UEFA.
Paolo Maldini played for the Italian senior national team from 1988 to 2002. He was the captain of the national team from 1994 to 2002 and holds the record for 126 national games in his country's national team.
Paolo Maldini has played for the Italian national team in a total of four World Cups (1990, 1994, 1998 and 2002) and three European Cups (1988, 1996 and 2000).
He resigned from the national team after Italy's misfortune in the 2002 World Cup, which was eliminated from the competition after losing to South Korea, and never changed his mind despite the request of the national football team officials to return.
The next player in the list of
best Serie A players of all time
is Alessandro Del Piero.
Alessandro Del Piero
Alessandro Del Piero, is one of the
greatest players in the history of Serie A
, who was born on November 9, 1974.
Nicknamed by the fans as "Il Fenomeno Vero" (The Real Phenomenon), Del Piero made his professional football debut in 1991, making four Serie B appearances. But he made his Serie A debut in September 1993. He scored his first goal in the next game against Regina and in his first game as a regular player he scored a hat-trick against Parma.
Del Piero's best season was the 1998-97 season, where Del Piero scored 21 goals in the Italian League and became the competition's top scorer with 10 goals in the Champions League.
A loyalist to Juventus, he announced as captain that he would stay at Juventus during the Calciopoli scandal in the 2005-06 season when Juventus relegated to Serie B, and implicitly asked other players to stay with Juventus. .
Del Piero is currently the fourth top scorer in the history of the Italian national football team. He played his first game at Euro 96 against Russia. He has captained Italy seven times (at the 2006 World Cup and at Euro 2008). He played football until he was 40, but was never called up to the national team again after the game against Georgia on September 10, 2008.
The next player in the list of
best Serie A players of all time
is Francesco Totti.
Francesco Totti
Francesco Totti, born on September 27, 1976, is one of
Serie A best footballers of all time
.
He entered the Roma Football School at the age of 7 and made his debut in March 1993, scoring his first goal in a friendly against Valencia.
In 1995, when he was 19, he became a regular player, scoring four goals in 20 games that season.
He himself believes that the help of his coach Carlo Mazzone has been very influential in his football progress.
He scored 30 goals in the Italian league in 1999 and that season won the award for the best young player in the league and the best player of the year.
He was part of the Italian national team that won the World Cup in 2006, but his best year was 2007.
In 2007,
Romadefeated Inter Milan to win the Coppa Italia, and Totti won the European Golden Shoe in addition to being the top scorer in the Champions League with 26 goals.
In the same year,
Real Madridoffered him a contract worth 200 million euros, but he did not accept the offer and said: "Roma is above all for me.
In May 2017, in the game between Rome and Genoa, Totti said goodbye to the world of football.
Francesco has set up a football school called No. 10 and has so far published two children's comic books, the proceeds of which will be donated to charities.
Roberto Baggio in the next player in our list of
best Serie A players of all time
.
Roberto Baggio
One of the
legendary Serie A players ever is
Roberto Baggio.
Born on February 18, 1967, he loved football as a child and even played soccer with a tennis ball. Baggio started playing football in L.R. Vicenza and was invited to join the Italian Under-16 national team. It was after Vicenza's promotion to Serie B that Baggio joined Fiorentina in Serie A and scored his first Serie A goal on 10 May 1987 against Napoli.
His success had begun! He was called up to the Italian national team in November 1988 and, after five seasons at Fiorentina, moved to Juventus on a£5.7million deal, a record transfer fee at the time!
The 1992-93 season was the best season for Baggio. Along with Juventus, he was able to participate in European competitions, scoring 6 goals in 9 matches and experiencing the European Club Championship for the first time.
Baggio was named FIFA World Player of the Year that year and won the Ballon d'Or.
At the 1994 World Cup, Baggio's beautiful goals and ponytail hairstyle gained a lot of fans, but his penalty kick went over Brazil in the final to give Baggio the worst moments of his life: Italy missed the 1994 World Cup!
After that Baggio joined Milan and after two bad seasons with the team, he left for Bologna and joined Inter the following year.
Finally, after a not-so-brilliant period with Inter, Baggio joined Brescia to spend the final years of his football career there. He retired on 16 May 2004 after his last match against AC Milan.
The next player in the list of
best Serie A players of all time
is Gianluigi Buffon.
Gianluigi Buffon
Gianluigi Buffon, better known as JJ Buffon, another player of our list of
Serie A legends of all time
, was born on January 28, 1978.
Buffon joined Parma at the age of 13. He played as a striker for Parma for the first year, but the following year both goalkeepers were injured and he was forced to play as a goalkeeper for two weeks. After that, he officially started working as a goalkeeper.
In November 1995, he played for the first time against the powerful and famous Milan team in Serie A, which ended in a goalless draw. Buffon stayed at Parma for the next six seasons and finally joined Juventus in 2001 with a € 54 million contract.
2006 was an eventful year for him. On the one hand, the accusation of participating in illegal betting on Serie A matches, and on the other hand, the forced relegation of Juventus to Serie B. But he did not leave the team and was later acquitted of his individual charges.
By 2017, he had been runner-up in UEFA Champions League three times in 2003, 2015 and 2017 with Juventus. It was this year that he was sent off in the 90th minute in protest of the Chris Ronaldo's penalty. Everyone thought this was Buffon's last game in Europe, but he went to
Paris Saint-Germainand after a half-season, he returned to the old lady and still plays for this team.
Among his honorswith Parma and Juventuswe can mention four Coppa Italia, six SupercoppaItaliana, one UEFA Cup, ten Serie A titles, one Serie B, and three UEFA Champions League runner-up.
The next player in the list of best Serie A players of all time is Fabio Cannavaro.
Fabio Cannavaro
Fabio Cannavaro is one of the legendary Serie A players ever, who was born on September 13, 1973.
His talent was discovered at an early age by Napoli's talent scouts and he joined the club. Fabio's first club game was at Napoli on March 7, 1993 against Juventus. Although he played very well for his team, he joined Parma after two years at Napoli due to the dire financial needs of club officials.
His time at Parma lasted seven seasons, and Parma finished second in Serie A, just one point behind Juventus.
It was in the summer of 2002 that Cannavaro joined AC Milan on a €32 million deal, and two years later he moved to Juventus to play alongside his former team-mates Thuram and Buffon. In the 2005 season, Cannavaro won his first Scudetto with Juventus, and that honor was repeated the following year.
After the relegation of Juventus to Serie B in 2006, Cannavaro accepted an offer from Real Madrid. The press reported that his contract was worth €20 million.
Fabio has played with his national team in the 1998, 2002 and 2006 World Cups and the 2000 and 2004 European Cups.
Cannavaro has been selected as the most humble and cheerful player among Italian football fans.
He holds the record for most national games in Italy with 136 appearances, and resigned from national football after the country was eliminated from the group stage of the 2010 World Cup.
Cannavaro, who has been with Al-Ahly Dubai since 2010, decided to say goodbye to football in July 2011 after a series of medical examinations.
The next place in our list of best Serie A players of all time belongs to Diego Maradona.
Diego Maradona
Diego Armando Maradona is another part of our legendary Serie A players ever' list. Born on October 30, 1960, Maradona's name in the world of football is synonymous with controversy and fringe.
He was called up to the Argentina national team at the age of 17, and with his innate genius, talent and brilliant play, he would undoubtedly be among the greats of world football if he had a good personality.
Maradona was the first player in the history of football to break the world transfer rate record twice: a € 5million deal with Barcelona in La Liga, and a €6.95 million deal with Napoli in Serie A.
Maradona won the 1986 World Cup with Argentina. It was in this competition that he scored his two most famous goals against England: his first goal known as the "Hand of God", and his second goal, which was voted the "Goal of the Century" in a 2002 FIFA poll.
The US World Cup was the end of Diego Maradona at the national level. Maradona, 34, led the team despite being overweight, but a moral error and doping led to his dismissal.
He loved cakes, cocaine and beatings. He had repeatedly beaten journalists in various places. Maradona's latest news was a shooting at reporters who tried to photograph him when he was banned from international games.
The next player in the list of best Serie A players of all time is Andrea Pirlo.
Andrea Pirlo
One of the best Serie A players ever, Andrea Pirlo, was born on May 19, 1979.
In 1995, he played his first game for Regina against Regina. Shortly after joining the first team, Pirlo went to Inter.
After three not-so-good seasons at Inter, Pirlo joined AC Milan. In the Milan team, under the supervision of Carlo Ancelotti, he found his way and became one of the best defensive players in the world of football and one of the best free kicks in the world.
Pirlo joined Juventus on a free transfer in 2011 and said after the transfer that he had made the right decision. He joined New York City USA after Juventus and retired in 2016 at the age of 38.
His nicknames "l'architetto" ("the Architect") and "ilprofessore" ("the professor"),are a good indication of his calculated and accurate style of play!
Among his honors in Serie A with Milanand Juventuswe can mention six Serie A titles, two Coppa Italia, three SupercoppaItaliana, two UEFA Champions League, two UEFA Super Cups, and one FIFA Club World Cup.
He was a key player in the Italian national team that won the 2006 FIFA World Cup, who also won several individual honors.
The next player in the list of greatest players in the history of Serie A is Javier Zanetti.
Javier Zanetti
Javier Zanetti is one of the greatest players in the history of Serie A.
Born on August 10, 1973, Zanetti's first team was Banfield First Division. After shining for Banfield, Zanetti received offers from Riverplate and Boca Juniors, but he eventually joined Inter Milan in 1995.
He quickly became a big player at Inter Zanetti and was named Inter Milan captain four years later.
Javier Zanetti was very popular with Inter fans and many consider him the best player in the history of Inter.
The moral player, who almost always played for Inter in the starting line-up, has only been sent off twice in his entire career.
Shirt No. 4 of Inter Milan team retired after Zanetti's retirement as a recognition to his career at the club.
The next player in the list of best Serie A players of all time is Giuseppe Meazza.
Giuseppe Meazza
With years of brilliant presence in the most prestigious Serie A teams, including Internazionale, Milan and Juventus, it is impossible to discuss Legendary SerieA players ever without mentioning Giuseppe Meazza!
Meazza was the first Italian football player to achieve a worldwide reputation. Much of this fame was due to his talent and ability on the field, which was presented with rebellious and skillful shots, spectacular headers, long jumps and impeccable team leadership.
And the other part of this reputation was because of Meazza's unique and slightly negative personality! He was the only national team player who was permitted to smoke, he drank occasionally and he was also known for having numerous and very short-term relationships with women!
Meazza was good at tango, and he used that skill in football in an interesting way: his quick turns, his control of the ball, his agility and his accuracy in shooting and passing made him a terrifying and unpredictable striker.
The next place in the list of best Serie A players of all time belongs to GiacintoFacchetti.
GiacintoFacchetti
Another one-club man, one of the legendary Serie A players ever, GiacintoFacchetti was born on July 18, 1942.
He spent his entire playing career at Inter Milan in the 1960s and 1970s, playing in 634 official appearances for the team, scoring 75 goals. Facchetti is considered by many to be one of the first offensive defenders; He played an important role in the success of the team known as the "Grande Inter".
He made his national debut in March 1963 at the age of 20. Facchetti played in three World Cups and was runner-up in the 1970 World Cup with Italy. He was also a member of the Italian champions at the 1968 European Cup.
His athleticism and personal personality also increased his popularity. This gentleman player received a red card only once in his entire career!
The loyal Italian football legend has held various managerial positions at Inter Milan since his retirement, includingtechnical director, board member, worldwide ambassador, vice-chairman and eventually chairman of Inter.
The next player in the list of best Serie A players of all time is Salvatore Schillaci.
Salvatore Schillaci
Salvatore Schillaci, one of the best Serie A players ever, was born on December 1, 1964.
Schillaci started playing professional football in the 1982-83 season with Messina. After seven seasons with this club, he joined Juventus in 1989-90. The brilliant season he spent there was a good opportunity for him to play for the Italian national team at the 1990 World Cup in his home country.
Salvatore Schillaci, 175cm tall, known for his pure technique and impressive football style, helped his national team to win the qualifying match against England with his goal in the 85th minute of the 1990 World Cup classification match, after losing on penalties to Argentina in the semi-finals. Italy finished third in the World Cup competitions.
His golden year was 1990. Being a key player in the Italian national team in 1990 FIFA World Cup, he won 1990 FIFA World Cup Golden Boot and Golden Ball and was part of 1990 FIFA World Cup All-Star Team. He scored a total of six goals in seven games at the 1990 World Cup, becoming the club's top scorer and also the Ballon d'Or (2nd place) winner.
The next player in the list of greatest players in the history of Serie A is Franco Baresi.
Franco Baresi
From the start of his youth career to the end of his senior career with Milan, Franco Baresi is one of greatest players in the history of Serie A!
Nicknamed "Piscinin" ("little one") and "Kaiser Franz"because of his playing style's resemblance to Franz Beckenbauer,Baresi is not only a Milan legend, but also one of the best Italian defenders of all time who had all the characteristics of an ideal defender, except for a tall man!
He won the World Cup with the Italian national team in 1982 and was one of the most valuable players at the 1990 World Cup in his home country.
At the 1994 World Cup, as captain of the Italian national team, he experienced the worst moment of his career: in the 94th World Cup final, he scored Italy's first penalty (wrong decision) and his last shot on his hals appearance in Italian national team failed.
His honors with Milan are six Serie A titles, two Serie B, four SupercoppaItaliana, three European Cup/UEFA Champions League, two UEFA Super Cups, and two Intercontinental Cups.
And from the individual point of view, he was Coppa Italia top scorer (1), Guerin d'Oro (Serie A Footballer of the Year) (1), World Soccer The Greatest Players of the 20th century #19, A.C. Milan Player of the 20th Century, and AIC Serie A Player of the 20th Century.
Baresi also shares the record of most own goals scored in Serie A history (eight, along with Riccardo Ferri).
In this article we had a brief look on the best Serie A players of all time. In the next articles we will review other Serie A best footballers of all timeand their honors and achievements.
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