10 of the biggest wastes of talent in football

#4 Antonio Cassano

Cassano's bad temper hindered his career a lot

If there ever were a prototypical Italian footballer, that man would be Antonio Cassano.

His breathtaking style of play is La dolce vita expressed on the football pitch, but his famous Italian temper also prevents him from ever reaching the heights of world football.

His exploits as a youngster for Bari earned him the moniker Il Gioiello di Bari Vecchia (The jewel of Old Bari), and Roma paid a handsome €30 million for his sterling services.

However, a series of clashes with club legend Francesco Totti and Roma manager Fabio Capello led to the Italian taskmaster coining the term ‘Cassanata‘ to describe his temper – which has since become popular with journalists when describing actions against team spirit.

Cassano left for Real Madrid, where it became quite obvious that he was more interested in things other than football.

It’s no surprise that the Trequartista went down a level, moving to Sampdoria and then to AC Milan. However, the Italian wasn't happy with Milan's decision to sell the likes of Thiago Silva and Zlatan Ibrahimovic and decided to join rivals Inter.

He struggled there as well and often clashed with the manager. After a season at Inter, he moved to Parma and he re-joined Sampdoria for the third time in 2015.

In July 2017, he joined Hellas Verona but decided to retire from football a few days later. He held a press conference on the same day saying he was reversing his decision but ultimately changed his mind again and left the club on 24th July.

Despite announcing his return in 2018, Cassano decided pull down the curtains on his career and retired that year.

A poor return for one of Italy’s most gifted footballers of their Golden generation.