NUFClegend
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- Aug 16, 2013
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Monday 11th March 2007
One last step upon that hallowed turf of the San Siro, my final game at the home of AC and Inter Milan before I would retire at the end of the season. My long career spent across Europe was finally culminating at AS Roma- the capital club. I started off as a youngster pushing his way into the Arsenal side, I played there for 5 years before completing a ?15m move to Manchester United. I was a cult hero at old Trafford for the 4 years I was there! I then made the ?35m switch to Barcelona where I made my name in front of the Catalan support by lifting the title 3 times in 4 years there. I finally was released from my contract where I joined Roma for the final 3 years of my career, it was fun and I loved the capital but at the age of 35 my legs can't hold up anymore.
So here I was at the San Siro playing infront of 49,000 supporters of AC Milan, a team who were 2 points ahead in the league standings at the top and as the game kicked of we were under pressure from the array of attacking talent. We were held back by the Milanese in the rainy spring night under the lights and we went into half time goalless, the manager explained how important the tie was and we went out for the second half. The ball came through from a lovely ball from Totti and I took a touch to compose myself infront of goal, the keeper made himself big which made the task much harder. I attempted the cheeky chip and somehow it worked brilliantly, the keeper was stranded on his line and as the ball creeped in to give us the lead everything went black!
They said I was in a coma for 2 weeks and suffered near brain damage from the incident, what happened was when the ball creeped in Mexes went into a late challenge and karate kicked my skull at full force, he was immediately sent off and banned for 4 games. I was out for 10 minutes on the pitch before they called the ambulance to take me to hospital. Mexes came as soon as I had awoken and apologised loads, I forgave him but it hurt me to watch it over and over again and I knew it was time... I had to retire from football.
Sunday 15th April 2013
I was now a pundit for match of the day, after completing my analysis of the days games I said my goodbyes to Shearer and Linekar ( sorry for spelling ) and set off home. In my can I received a call from my agent which was urgent, our long conversation culminated with me getting the next plane to Italy- more specifically Rome to have discussions with giants And my former club Roma.
One last step upon that hallowed turf of the San Siro, my final game at the home of AC and Inter Milan before I would retire at the end of the season. My long career spent across Europe was finally culminating at AS Roma- the capital club. I started off as a youngster pushing his way into the Arsenal side, I played there for 5 years before completing a ?15m move to Manchester United. I was a cult hero at old Trafford for the 4 years I was there! I then made the ?35m switch to Barcelona where I made my name in front of the Catalan support by lifting the title 3 times in 4 years there. I finally was released from my contract where I joined Roma for the final 3 years of my career, it was fun and I loved the capital but at the age of 35 my legs can't hold up anymore.
So here I was at the San Siro playing infront of 49,000 supporters of AC Milan, a team who were 2 points ahead in the league standings at the top and as the game kicked of we were under pressure from the array of attacking talent. We were held back by the Milanese in the rainy spring night under the lights and we went into half time goalless, the manager explained how important the tie was and we went out for the second half. The ball came through from a lovely ball from Totti and I took a touch to compose myself infront of goal, the keeper made himself big which made the task much harder. I attempted the cheeky chip and somehow it worked brilliantly, the keeper was stranded on his line and as the ball creeped in to give us the lead everything went black!
They said I was in a coma for 2 weeks and suffered near brain damage from the incident, what happened was when the ball creeped in Mexes went into a late challenge and karate kicked my skull at full force, he was immediately sent off and banned for 4 games. I was out for 10 minutes on the pitch before they called the ambulance to take me to hospital. Mexes came as soon as I had awoken and apologised loads, I forgave him but it hurt me to watch it over and over again and I knew it was time... I had to retire from football.
Sunday 15th April 2013
I was now a pundit for match of the day, after completing my analysis of the days games I said my goodbyes to Shearer and Linekar ( sorry for spelling ) and set off home. In my can I received a call from my agent which was urgent, our long conversation culminated with me getting the next plane to Italy- more specifically Rome to have discussions with giants And my former club Roma.