Antonio Cassano's Career Is in Tatters...Again

Not for the first time in his troubled and disappointing career has Antonio Cassano put his career in doubt because of his immature behaviour. With his recent and completely undeserved outburst at Sampdoria President Riccardo Garrone FanAntonio may be without a club very soon.

Seemingly unwilling to forgive Cassano, Garrone is wholly intent on rescinding the player’s contract. It may seem harsh to the outsider, but it is not. Cassano is a very difficult player to manage and no manager has ever achieved in quelling his extremely volatile nature.

For a short while it seemed, however, that one club had achieved in doing so. With Sampdoria Cassano has displayed some of the genius and class that we all know he possesses. His return to form for the Genoese club enabled him to be recalled to the national team under new coach Cesare Prandelli.

Given the lack of world class players in the current Italy set up, the presence of a fit and in-form Cassano came as a delight to Italian football fans and relief to Prandelli whose job is to rebuild a fallen Azzurri.

Because Cassano is a fantasista, as they call them in Italy. These players are able to win games single-handedly. And this is exactly what Cassano did in Italy’s qualifying win over Estonia. After scoring one and setting up the other, Cassano led the Azzurri to victory. The day after this performance Cassano was being hailed as the new saviour of Italy.

But, in typical fashion Cassano again let himself down again. A bust up with Garrone has seen him frozen out of the team and quite possibly the club altogether very soon.

On the surface it may seem that Riccardo Garrone’s punishment of Cassano is harsh. But this is simply not true.

Antonio has been given the freedom of a king in Genoa. No disciplinary sanctions are applied to Cassano whenever he does not train, whenever he does not eat properly, or when he inevitably becomes involved in a conflict like when he recently fell out with club captain Angelo Palumbo.

Apparently, Cassano’s relationships with former coaches Beppe Marotta and Luigi Del Neri were also frosty at times, which is not hard to believe. But again, the club did its best to cover up such events from the media to protect their treasured No. 99 from himself.

It is for these reasons that Cassano’s recent display of disrespect for the man that pays his wages is a serious mistake and one that should be afforded serious punishment. Though, it has to be said that in rescinding his contract, Sampdoria are perhaps punishing themselves too as Cassano still would  fetch the club a significant sum if he were sold in the January transfer market.

So again Cassano finds his career in tatters and thanks to no one but himself. He knows this too and this is why he has pleaded that he will even accept his wages to be halved just to be reinstated into the team. But Garrone remains unyielding and therefore Cassano’s career really is in trouble.

This situation is not only a major setback for both Cassano’s career and Sampdoria, but it will also affect the fortunes of the Azzurri.

In fact, Cassano’s failure to control himself throughout his career, a problem that has prevented him from becoming the player he could have been, has been a major loss to the La Nazionale over the years.

Italy has always produced fine ‘number ten’s’. In recent decades Italy has been blessed with the genius of Roberto Baggio, followed by likes of Alessandro Del Piero and Francesco Totti. Antonio Cassano should have been the next name on this list. But, due to his many self-made troubles, Cassano has been unable to fulfil his potential that if he did so would have made sure his name was next on such a list.

Today, there are serious problems with the Azzurri as their dreadful performances in South Africa would attest too. One major problem is the lack of talent in Italy.

It is for this reason that now more than ever Italy could do with a player with Antonio Cassano’s ability to help lead the Azzurri back to being amongst the best.

For a brief moment when Italy defeated Estonia, many thought that in none other than Antonio Cassano himself the Azzurri had found its new saviour.

But it is fast appearing like this was yet another false dawn in the career of Antonio Cassano. Facing an uncertain future, if Cassano fails to reignite his career soon it may be too little too late.

A player of undoubted quality it would be such a major disappointment Cassano’s career fails to recover. But then again, Italian fans had long lost hope on the former Bari starlet. It was premature and rather optimistic for anyone to have thought that Cassano had finally come around, at the ripe old age of 28.

The only thing Cassano has proved is that eleven years on from his prodigious debut against Inter where he scored a wonder goal, little has changed. He is still the immature, ill-disciplined and impossible Antonio Cassano that he ever was.