Raised by his mother and with his father abandoning him and the family, he used his footballing talent to help escape a life that, by his own admission, would have centred around crime
ANTONIO CASSANO was born into poverty in Bari, the day after Italy won the World Cup in 1982.
Raised by his mother and with his father abandoning him and the family, he used his talent at football to help escape a life that, by his own admission, would have centred around petty crime.
Instead, he forged a career that saw him play for giants like Inter, AC Milan and Real Madrid.
He also won 39 caps for Italy, scoring ten goals.
It’s a shame then that he’s best remembered for his antics off the pitch, rather than those on it…
Everyone could see Antonio Cassano had real ability.
That’s why he played for Roma and Real Madrid and for both of the Milan giants.
But it never quite panned out the way he had planned.
Cassano himself claimed: “I could've been playing on another planet, but I had this issue that I didn't like training and I wanted to eat the way I felt like at the time and I ruined myself.
“If I'd had another head on my shoulders, I could've been playing on Mars. I'd be like Lionel Messi, Neymar and few others.”
When Cassano and his wife Carolina had their second child in 2013, there was no doubt what he was going to be called... Lionel.
When asked why, Cassano replied that it was “in honour of the greatest player of all time, my idol” scotching rumours that he was simply the world’s biggest Lionel Blair fan.
During a press conference at Euro 2012 with Italy, Cassano was asked whether he thought there were any gay players in the Azzurri squad.
“I hope there are none,” came Cassano’s reply.
As did a fine of £13,000 from Uefa.
Whether he was being sent-off for throwing his shirt at a ref or having a locker room brawl with his coach (as he did at Inter), trouble followed Cassano around like a puppy.
“Anarchy is always just around the corner with Cassano,” said his old coach Fabio Capello.
Not so, says Cassano: “Before exploding, always count at least to one."
Cassano once said that he couldn’t wait to retire so he could eat until he was clincically obese.
But then he’s always struggled with the timber.
When he moved to Real Madrid his weight became such a concern that he was fined for every gram he was overweight and was eventually banished from the first team squad by manager Capello.
Unable to sell him, they eventually offloaded him to Sampdoria with Real paying most of his salary just to get rid of him.
When he signed for Parma in 2013, Cassano made a concerted effort to lose the lard and stake a claim for a place in the Italian squad for the World Cup in Brazil in 2014.
Within a season he managed to lose ten kilograms.
It was the result, it transpired, of cutting down his focaccia binges to just once a week.
It worked too.
National coach Cesare Prandelli named Cassano in his 23-man squad for the tournament and he made two substitute appearances as Italy went out in the group stages.
It was while he was in Madrid that Cassano managed to indulge both the loves of his life: food and women.
"In Madrid I had a friend who was a hotel waiter,” he explained in his autobiography, Telling Everything.
“His job was to bring me three or four pastries after I had sex.
"He would bring the pastries up the stairs, I would escort the woman to him and we would make an exchange.
"He would take the girl and I would take the pastries. Sex and then food, a perfect night."
In 2008 Cassano claimed that he had slept with over 600 women.
Lord alone knows how many pastries that is.
Cassano once described himself as a “problematic guy” and even today he’s still got his struggles.
In July last year, he signed for relegation-threatened Verona but, just eight days later, he announced he was retiring from football blaming homesickness.
That same day, though, he changed his mind, explaining that he had suffered a moment of weakness.
Fast forward another six days and this time he really was calling it a day.
“There was no spark there”, he said later.
“It's like when you’re seeing a woman and she no longer attracts you, so you leave.”
