PERFEFCT, FABIO CANNAVARO!

Born in Naples on September 13, 1973, Fabio Cannavaro starts to play soccer at a young age. At 8 he already plays in the team of Bagnoli. When he's 11 he start playing at Napoli and there he wins his first price. The junior championship of 1987. It's the golden period of Napoli, they win everything with Maradona, and Fabio follows every step of his idol as a ballboy in the San Paolo stadion. Not only Super Diego plays at Napoli, but also his favourite defender, Ciro Ferrara, he learns him everything, also the tackle... Once, when Fabio was a part of the junior team he made that kind of tackle against the great Maradona, and he was reprimended by the coach of the National team immediately. "Pibe de Oro" chose the side of Cannavaro and said: Okay, it's okay like this. When he makes his debut in the first team of Napoli (March 7th, 1993), Maradona already left Napoli and Napoli has to depend on their promising talents of the junior squad. Fabio fights for results and uses all his explosive powers that make him the fastest defender in the Serie A. The adventure in Napoli lasts for 3 seasons, in the summer of 1995 he goes to Parma, where he plays togheter with Buffon and Thuram. With them Parma wins the Coppa Italia and the Uefa Cup, the Super Coppa Italiana and they After the department of Lilian Thuram to Juventus, Parma decided to make Fabio captain of the team. He is without a doubt a true leader of the team. Togheter with the big successes at Parma he has big successes with the National team.

He winst the European championship under the 21 twice, with the team trained by Cesare Maldini (1994 and 1996). Fabio makes his international debut on January 22th 1997 against North Ireland. After playing at Parma for 7 years, he leaves in the summer of 2002 for a new adventure at Inter Milan. Fabio participates at the World Championship of 1998 and 2002 and the European Championship of 2000 and 2002. In 2002 Paolo Maldini ends his International carreer and Fabio becomes the captain of Italy. In 2004 Fabio moves to Turin and starts playing for Juventus. Together with his ex-Parma patners, Lilian Thuram and Gianluigi Buffon, Canna formed one of the best defensive lines in Serie A and Canna won his first Scudetto with Juventus in 2005.He wins the national championship twice, but they got stripped of because of scandal of mogiopoli. Juventus has to play in the Serie B and Fabio leaves them to play at Real Madrid. In 2006 at the World Championship in Germany, Fabio gets the success he's been dreaming about. Italy becomes world champion. When he returend to Italy he was received by many enthousatic fans and he received the key of his hometown Napels, togheter with Ciro Ferrara. Currently he is the captain of national team. During his career Cannavaro has earned world wide prominence, winning many personal accolades. For example he was the first ever defender to win FIFA Worlf Player of The Year and the first defender since Franz Beckenbauer in 1972 to win the Eurepean Footballer of The Year award; both of these were achieved in 2006. He was also selected in the FIF Pro World XI squad third, during 2005 – 2006, 2006– 20007, and 2007 - 2008. Fabio Cannavaro ia also a sex symbol in his native Italy and was recently voted "sexiest player" of the 2006 World Cup. He was the runner up in the race for the Golden Ball, which is awarded to the world cup´s best player, Zinedine Zidane. Cannavaro was chosen as a world cup all-star at the end of the tournament. He joins 6 other Italian teammates.

Cannavaro is especially noted for his reading of the game, an ability that often sees him make countless interceptions during games. He is also tipped as the best pure defender in the world and this is the main factor that has compensated his lack of height, making him one of the finest central-backs formed in Italy.