Andrea Pirlo was "very, very close" to signing for Real Madrid in 2006 and also held talks with Pep Guardiola's Barcelona.
Pirlo played for Milan between 2001 and 2011, winning two Serie A titles as well as a pair of Champions League trophies with the Italian giants.
But during this time, the Rossoneri were involved in the Calciopoli scandal as one of five teams accused of fixing Serie A matches.
This brought their future participation in Serie A and the Champions League into doubt as Pirlo won the 2006 World Cup with Italy, and a move to Santiago Bernabeu almost materialised.
The former midfielder told FourFourTwo: "We had just won the World Cup, but we didn't know what would happen.
"I was very, very close with Real Madrid. But then we got told that Milan could enter Champions League qualifying and be readmitted to Serie A.
"I was offered a new contract straight away and the club did a lot to keep me."
Pirlo also had discussions with Madrid's rivals Barcelona and head coach Guardiola in 2010. "He called me in [to his office after the game] and started talking about how he wanted to play and how he would like me to join his team," he recalled.
"For me, it was a source of pride, especially to talk to him and also to be compared to a Barcelona player. In the end, nothing happened, but being called by Guardiola into his office to talk was a wonderful experience."
Pirlo, now the head coach of Turkish side Fatih Karagumruk, was wanted by English sides, too, with Chelsea one of those who tried to lure him away from Milan.
"Ancelotti asked me to go with him [to Chelsea]," the 43-year-old said. "The two teams talked about it with my agent, and there was a big chance.
"But in the end, when it was time to sign the contract, Silvio Berlusconi [then Milan owner] and Adriano Galliani [CEO] didn't want me to go."
Manchester City also tried to unsuccessfully bring Pirlo to the Premier League before he eventually joined Juventus, where he stayed for four years before ending his career with MLS franchise New York City FC.
"I spoke with Juventus, with Roberto Mancini's Manchester City and with other big teams," he explained. "But in the end, I decided to go to Turin because they had a good project to get back to winning ways.
"They had just gone through some tough years, but they had a new stadium and were building a new Juve, where I would be an important player, so I decided to go there."
The Premier League season that rewrote the goalscoring record books
The 1,084 goals scored in this season’s Premier League were a record for a 20-team season.
Abdoulaye Doucoure’s crucial goal for Everton against Bournemouth on Sunday, which clinched the Toffees’ survival, also meant the league surpassed the previous high of 1,072 in 2018-19.
Here, the PA news agency looks at how it happened.
2022-23Erling Haaland has rewritten the individual record books and his exploits for Manchester City have now helped create a new league record as well.
The Norwegian’s 36 goals led the way, with Harry Kane a distant second in the Golden Boot race despite scoring 30 for Tottenham.
Ivan Toney netted 20 for Brentford before starting his eight-month betting suspension, with Mohamed Salah (19) and Callum Wilson (18) completing the top five.
Champions City were the league’s top scorers with 94 goals while long-time leaders Arsenal racked up 88.
Liverpool and Brighton cracked 70, as did Tottenham who scored and conceded more than 60 – their 2007-08 season was the only previous instance of a team doing so in the Premier League.
Every team contributed at least 30 to the tally, the first time that has happened since the 2012-13 campaign.
2018-19City were again champions in the previous record season and contributed 95 themselves, a similar impact to this season.
The tally could have been even higher but for Ederson and his defence, with City conceding only 23 to finish with a goal difference of plus-72 – that ranks third in Premier League history, with City and Chelsea the only clubs ever to top 70.
Liverpool, who finished just a point behind City in the title race, scored 89 while Arsenal contributed 73. Three more teams topped 60 and a further six reached a half-century while only Huddersfield (22) came in under 30.
There was no Haaland equivalent driving the total but a host of players contributed at a high level – Liverpool pair Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane and Arsenal striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang all shared the Golden Boot on 22, with Sergio Aguero just one behind for City, while a record 32 players reached double figures.
Best of the restLast season came up just one short of the previous record as seven teams broke the 60-goal barrier, with City and Liverpool on 99 and 94 respectively.
There were 1,066 in 2011-12, 1,064 in 2016-17 and only one fewer in 2010-11 and 2012-13.
Surprisingly 2017-18, when City scored 106 goals and Salah and Kane both hit the magical 30 mark individually, had only 1,018 goals in total as Huddersfield stayed up with 28, the same total as relegated Swansea, and Burnley finished seventh with only 36.
Indeed, none of the four seasons in which a team has hit a century figures particularly highly in the chart. City scored 102 of the league’s 1,034 in 2019-20 and Chelsea 103 of 1,053 in 2009-10. Even 2013-14, when City scored 102 and Liverpool 101, only saw 1,052 goals in total.
The league’s early 42-game seasons unsurprisingly featured higher overall tallies, with 1,222 in the inaugural 1992-93 campaign followed by back-to-back seasons with 1,195, but the average of 2.85 per game this term is the outright highest in the Premier League era.
The Premier League season in numbers
The Premier League season came to an end on Sunday with Manchester City winning the title while Southampton, Leeds and Leicester were relegated.
Here, the PA news agency looks at the stand-out statistics from the season.
7 – Premier League titles for Manchester City, including five of the last six.
89 – points for Pep Guardiola’s side, five more than runners-up Arsenal.
5 – Guardiola has five Premier League titles to his name, second only to former Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson’s 13. Eight of his players – Ederson, Kyle Walker, John Stones, Aymeric Laporte, Ilkay Gundogan, Kevin De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva and Phil Foden – have been part of the squad for all five.
36 – City striker Erling Haaland’s Premier League record goal tally, ending a run of three straight seasons in which 23 won the Golden Boot.
30 – goals for Tottenham’s Harry Kane, the second time he has reached that mark without winning the Golden Boot – a feat otherwise only achieved by Alan Shearer in 1993-94.
16 – Haaland’s team-mate De Bruyne led the assists chart, four clear of his nearest challengers Mohamed Salah and Leandro Trossard.
17 – clean sheets for Manchester United’s David De Gea as he won the league’s Golden Glove award for a second time.
1,084 – goals scored in this season’s top flight, a Premier League record.
248 – days Arsenal led the Premier League table, the most ever for a team who did not win the league. They won eight of their first nine games, with the club accounting for the last three examples of a team starting so well without winning the league having suffered similarly in 2004-05 and 2007-08.
21 – Newcastle finished in the top four for the first time in 21 years. They are only the second team from outside the league’s established ‘big six’ to qualify for the Champions League in the last 18 seasons, the other exception being Leicester’s memorable 2016 title win.
3 – all three promoted teams – Fulham, Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest – avoided relegation, only the fourth time in the Premier League era that has been the case and the first since 2017-18.
60 – Tottenham became only the second team to both score and concede more than 60 goals in a Premier League season, after they themselves did so in 2007-08.
1 – Everton defender James Tarkowski was the only outfield player to play every minute of his side’s season, in addition to goalkeepers De Gea, Aaron Ramsdale and David Raya. Max Kilman was on track to achieve the same feat until being left on the bench for Wolves’ penultimate game against Everton.
6 – Wolves’ six red cards were twice as many as any other club, while their 84 yellows was jointly the most in the league alongside Forest and Leeds.
147 – Fulham’s Joao Palhinha was far and away the league’s leading tackler, with second-placed Moises Caicedo of Brighton on exactly 100.
2 – three players scored two own goals apiece – Leicester defender Wout Faes, in a seven-minute spell against Liverpool, Crystal Palace’s Joachim Andersen and Bournemouth’s Chris Mepham. Faes was only the fourth player to score two in a Premier League match.
9 – Liverpool’s 9-0 win over Bournemouth equalled the biggest in Premier League history.
9.11 – the Cherries’ Philip Billing scored the second-quickest goal in Premier League history, 9.11 seconds into their eventual 3-2 defeat to Arsenal.
15 – Arsenal’s Ethan Nwaneri became the league’s youngest ever player when he made his debut against Brentford in September, aged 15 years and 181 days.
Luciano Spalletti ‘a free man’ after leading Napoli to Serie A success
Napoli manager Luciano Spalletti is set to leave the club after guiding them to their first Serie A title in 33 years.
President Aurelio De Laurentiis said that the 64-year-old, who took over the Partenopei in 2021, has asked to take a sabbatical and will leave the club with a year left on his contract.
“He’s a free man, now it’s right that he continues to do what he wants. I thank him,” De Laurentiis told Italian broadcaster Rai as reported by Sky Italy.
Napoli clinched their first title since 1990, when Diego Maradona led them to the Scudetto, with five games to spare.
Spalletti’s final game in charge is set to be at home to Sampdoria next Sunday.
Reports in Italy suggest Napoli will attempt to bring in former Barcelona and Spain head coach Luis Enrique to replace Spalletti.
A number of their star players such as top scorer Victor Osimhen and centre-back Kim Min-jae have been linked with moves away from Naples this summer, with a host of Premier League clubs among those reportedly interested.
SportsMax is the Caribbean sports channel of choice, committed to providing sporting content of the highest quality to the Caribbean, delivered by a team of highly innovative, passionate and qualified professionals.
(876) 619-7629
digitalmedia@sportsmax.tv
