Fabio Cannavaro is one of the best Italian defenders, winner of the Ballon d'Or in 2006. Winner of many personal and club trophies.
Childhood and first steps in football
Young Fabio was born on September 13, 1973 in the southern Italian city of Naples. The boy grew up in a large family of 3 children: himself, his sister and brother.
The head of the family in the past played football at a professional level, even put on a T-shirt of the local grandee Napoli several times, but he did not achieve anything serious in his sports biography. Largely thanks to him, the son fell in love with football from birth. At the age of 11, the boy enters the academy of his native club. Gradually, he begins to work as a ballboy in the matches of his team, which included childhood idols: Ciro Ferrara and Diego Armando Maradona.
Club career
The promising defender made his debut in 1992. Without a stable playing practice, Cannavaro played 58 matches in 3 years and scored 1 goal. This was followed by a transfer to one of the strongest Italian club teams of the 90s - Parma. The crusaders were engaged in rejuvenation and strengthening of the composition, and they liked the promising defender. It was here that Fabio first declared himself as a strong footballer.
Having developed a perfect relationship with defender Lilian Thuram and goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, Cannavaro won 4 trophies with Parma: the UEFA Cup, 2 Italian Cups and the Italian Super Cup. The result of Cannavaro's performances in the Crusaders: 212 matches and 5 goals.
After that, the defender moves to Internazionale, in which he does not win any trophies, and after playing only 50 matches and scoring 2 goals, Fabio in 2004 moves to another Italian club - the famous Juventus. For 2 seasons in Turin, the defender won the Italian championship twice, but the club was deprived of both won titles as a result of Calciopoli, a corruption scandal in Italian football.
The club is sent to Serie B, and Cannavaro, for the first time in his career, travels outside of his native Italy, moving to Spanish Real Madrid. In Madrid, under the guidance of an old friend, coach Fabio Capello, the defender will win the national championship in the first season, but the next 2 seasons were without trophies. In the summer of 2009, Cannavaro returned to Turin, and after spending one season for Juventus, moved to Arab Al-Ahli, where he ended his great career as one of the iconic Italian defenders.
Italy squad
For the national team, Fabio made his debut in 1997 as part of qualification for the World Cup-98 in France. The Italians performed poorly at the tournament, having taken off, having fought with the hosts in the quarterfinals. They managed to rehabilitate already at Euro 2000, when the Italian team reached the final on the fields of the Netherlands and Belgium, in which they lost to France in extra time.
The team's finest hour was the 2006 World Cup held in Germany. A bunch of central defenders of the Italians Cannavaro-Nesta was simply impassable, for the entire tournament the team conceded only 2 goals. The French team was beaten in the final, and Fabio played his 100th match for the national team. The player made the decision to end his career in the national team in 2010 after the disastrous world championship in South Africa. In total, the defender played 136 matches for Italy, scoring 2 goals.
Personal life
Cannavaro met his future wife, Daniela, at the age of 19. At the moment, the couple are raising 2 sons and daughter Martina.
