Alessandro Nesta : Vigorous Blood Of The 90s

His father was a diehard Lazio fan, so when the other club in the Italian capital came to pick up his son Sandro, which is Roma of course, he rejected them without saying a word. Anything in the world but not his son to Roma. Little Alessandro loved Lazio as much as his father. Although it took some time, at one stage the call came from his own dream club. Nesta joined Lazio's youth system at just nine years old. It didn't start well, when Nesta was called up to train with the main team at the age of 16, the team's star player Paul Gascoigne's leg was broken on his tackle, and they both got up from the tackle crying, Gascoigne ended up leaving the club at the end of that season. Criticism was not heard for Gascoigne because he was famous, but the young Nesta did not have that fate. After that tackle, he had to listen to boos of his supporters in several consecutive matches, but at one stage he won their hearts with his extraordinary performance.

The whole world is shaking with Serie A fever when he made his debut for the main team in the 90's. Alessandro Del Piero was haunting opposition keepers, Zidane being magic in the midfield, Gabriel Batiatuta was a wanted player. Nesta did not tremble because of them even though any young man trembled to stand in front of so many monsters. This 'Born and Bread Lazial' young man has dealt with everyone one by one with skill. In the 1995/96 season, coach Zednek Zeman began to organize his team around Nesta. Lazio won the Copa Italia in the 1997/98 season, led by Nesta. Czech coach Zeman had some ideas of his own, Zeman liked to build up the game from the back. Nesta was an auto-choice in this case, at that time there were very few centerbacks in Italy who were as efficient as him on the ball. Under the Czech coach, it was Bianconchelsteira who played the most beautiful game in all of Italy at that time. Lazio missed scudetto to Juventus for just one point in the 1998/99 season. Seeing this, Lazio president Sergio Kragnotti decided to invest, and the following season, when Lazio coach Erikson gave Nesta the captain's armband, he was only 18. The star-studded squad who won the domestic doubles under Nesta included Diego Simeone, Juan Sebastian Veron, Roberto Mancini and Pavel Nedved. Two seasons later, President Kragnotti was forced to relinquish some of his best players due to a money crunch. Milan's Silvio Berlusconi did not hesitate to spend € 30m for Nesta. Defenders like Paolo Maldini, Jaap Stam, Alessandro Costacurta and Cafu were already in the Milan defense at the time. Nesta spent ten years in Milan, despite repeated injuries and a lack of performance. Milan won two scudettos this time, then went on to win their seventh and Nesta's second Champions League trophy in 2007.

In his injury-plagued career even after 30, he played at the same pace. He lost speed with age but never lost the timing, perhaps the most perfect example of this in the 2012 Champions League match against Barcelona, where 36 year old Nesta made a perfectly timed tackle and stopped Barcelona's Lionel Messi from scoring. When he left Milan that year, his ex-Milan teammate Paolo Maldini explained about him:

“I think it’s a real piece of club history that’s leaving, a piece of Italian football history, On technical level, human level and tactical level, he’s one of the few unforgettable players of Italian football. Nesta reinvigorated the tradition of great central defenders at AC Milan, which goes back to when I started playing 20 years ago.” Quote Source