Your dad, Fabio, must’ve been a tough act to follow at Milan, having been in goal for their 1969 European Cup win...
I took the positives of having a father with great knowledge and experience in football. He advised me. When you get closer to professional level, comparisons are made, but it didn’t feel as if I was carrying a weight on my shoulders. My father stopped playing football the year before I was born, so I didn’t have the chance to see him play or to experience the family life of a footballer. When I was a teenager, I’d often be a ball boy at the first-team matches, usually under the hardcore Curva Sud stand. I remember seeing Diego Maradona play for Napoli, which was brilliant. Years later I was part of the first team myself.
Your first time in a matchday squad was for a Milan derby, in 1992 – what was that like to experience at only 18?
I’d been away for a tournament with the under-18 national team. We played the semi-final, and straight afterwards I had to travel back to Milan to sit on the bench for the derby. After the game, I immediately returned to the national squad because we had to play the final. That was a pretty hectic period. I was training with the first team that season as the third-choice goalkeeper; everyone was open and welcoming, especially the foreign lads such as Zvonimir Boban and Dejan Savicevic. They were lovely blokes. One weekend, they were going away for a game and Dejan lent me his BMW M5. I only had a Golf and Dejan said to me, “Carlo, you take my car for the weekend, but bring it back in one piece on Monday morning.” You can imagine how thrilled I was to drive around in such a great car as a 19-year-old.
What do you recall of your Champions League debut away at Porto? You were the second choice then and even made the bench for the 1993 final...
This story is from the December 2024 edition of FourFourTwo UK.
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This story is from the December 2024 edition of FourFourTwo UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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