Is This the End of the Road for Paolo Maldini?

Almost everyone loves Paolo Maldini. Even I can’t help admiring him, though as a Les Bleus fan, I tend to ignore anything coming out of Italy as a general rule of thumb.

The 39 year old defender has been with AC Milan as long as I’ve been alive (I’m 24), and though he announced a few weeks back that he would retire at the end of this year, he recently said that he might be persuaded to continue playing for another season. That made a lot of people really happy, especially the ones who hang out here, but unfortunately, they weren’t able to celebrate for very long.

Yesterday during practice, Maldini picked up an injury to his left thigh. While the extent of the damage is not known, it looks severe enough that the club is expecting him to miss the remaining five games in Milan’s campaign. Given that Maldini was only lukewarm about the idea of playing for another year, it seems more likely than ever that he in fact will be hanging up his boots at the end of the season. Which means that we’ll probably never see Maldini play again outside of a few random charity matches.

Booo. These last few weeks were supposed to be his swan song. He was supposed to help salvage Milan’s mediocre season and lead them into a Champions League qualifying spot (they’re currently in fifth place, aka the UEFA Cup zone). The plan was that during the very last game, he’d score a goal in stoppage time, be lifted by his teammates and paraded around the pitch, be cheered by thousands of adoring fans, and exchange jerseys with God.

Except now he’ll be watching his career end from the sidelines. How very unfair, and not at all what a class act like Maldini deserves. So let’s hope that his injury isn’t as serious as the media is making it out to be. I’d love it if he could get well before the season ends and run that victory lap. The world definitely needs to see Maldini in one last time.

But until we do, here are just a few of the highlights from his long and illustrious career.

Some Related Stories:

Category: Serie A