Having passed through AC Milan or Atalanta Bergamo, Mattia Caldara decided to call it quits. “Dear football, I bid you farewell. I decided to stop”declared the 31-year-old Italian central defender in a letter published on the site Gianlucadimarzio. And to add: “It all started in July, after a visit to a specialist: “Mattia, you no longer have any cartilage in your ankle. If you continue like this, in a few years you will have to have a prosthesis.” My body had betrayed me. This time, maybe for good“.
Weighed down by injuries and in particular a serious knee injury in 2018, Mattia Caldara, after 125 Serie A matches, therefore decided to retire. “The last few months have been difficult. Years, even. I talk about my life since I broke my kneehe says. I still remember the first step after the tackle: I felt the ground give way under my foot. I collapsed. First physically, then mentally. I was at the peak of my career, and in a matter of seconds, everything changed. (…) Never again. I could never become that Caldara again. I tried, but it became impossible. This quest for an illusion exhausted me”.
