Antonio Cassano Biography
Antonio Cassano (born July 12, 1982 in Bari) is an Italian football player who plays for club side Real Madrid and the Italian national team. He plays primarily as a striker or in the hole (Italian: fantasista or trequartista). Cassano grew up poor in the old section of Bari. As a child, he always played soccer in the streets of Bari and was picked up by a Bari scout and brought up through the AS Bari youth system.
Cassano made his Italian league debut in 1999 for Bari against local rivals Lecce, and a week later scored a superb goal against Inter Milan, one of the clubs who had courted Cassano before he had eventually signed professionally with his hometown club. The top clubs in Italy each kept a close eye on Cassano, and with rumours of a pre-contract agreement having been signed with Roma, the player eventually signed for the then Serie A champions in the summer of 2001. The transfer fee of around €28m, was at that time a huge amount to pay for a player who was still only 19 years old - Juventus president Luciano Moggi said at the time: "Cassano is a real talent, but €28m for a player of his age is excessive. It's too soon to understand exactly how much he is worth."
Cassano's first season at Roma produced only five goals, but as he developed his game he began to come to the attention of those in charge of the national side, culminating in a scoring debut for Italy in November 2003, against Poland. He went on to make the squad for Euro 2004, scoring in two of Italy's three matches.
Controversy has continually trailed Cassano as his numerous spats with coaches at club and international level will attest. His relationship with former Roma coach Fabio Capello was a fractious one - the pair fell out over Cassano's omission from a practice match days after his international debut - but Capello has himself since moved on to Juventus.
In the 2004/2005 Cassano's controversial behaviour became more notorious. After the resignation of Cesare Prandelli for personal reasons, he quarrelled with replacement Rudi Voeller for an entire month until Voeller resigned due to poor results. On 31 December 2004, in a rare interview, he claimed to miss his former coach Fabio Capello, who Cassano considered to be "like a father".
He was ommitted from the squad for the remainder of the season by Luigi Del Neri, who had become the third AS Roma coach during the season, before being replaced by Bruno Conti after a disastrous season for the giallorossi.
During the 2005/2006 pre-season, with Roma coached by former Udinese trainer Luciano Spalletti, Cassano was in constant conflict with the club management over the renewal of his contract, which was due to expire on 30 June 2006. Many sports columnists speculated that Cassano would leave Roma to join his former coach Fabio Capello at Juventus, but he eventually joined Real Madrid in January 2006. His departure from Roma coincided with the club's spectacular recovery from poor early-season form. Roma's record-breaking winning streak of successive league and cup victories led to them rising from the relegation zone to being contenders for a UEFA Champions League place.
He debuted for the merengues on January 18, in a Copa del Rey match against Real Betis, and scored his first goal just three minutes after he came on during the second half. Failure to gain a regular place in the side led to reports that Madrid are seeking to offload him. However, despite reports appearing in the Madrid newspaper El Pais about his continuing erratic behaviour and weight problems due to a weakness for chocolate and cakes, he managed to return to the side and score in Madrid's 2-1 win over city rivals Atlético Madrid.
With Thanks to Wikipedia.org