{"id":45305,"date":"2026-08-02T03:32:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T03:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/franco-baresi-ac-milan-and-italy-great-dies-aged-66\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T03:32:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T03:32:23","slug":"franco-baresi-ac-milan-and-italy-great-dies-aged-66","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/franco-baresi-ac-milan-and-italy-great-dies-aged-66\/","title":{"rendered":"Franco Baresi: AC Milan and Italy great dies aged 66"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Maldini, 58, who also spent his entire career at Milan, paid tribute to his former team-mate, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DbcvFHHtkc7\/?hl=en\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">writing on Instagram:<span class=\"visually-hidden ssrcss-i2z2ig-VisuallyHidden e16en2lz0\">, <!-- -->external<\/span><\/a> &#8220;Today, I feel the same way I did whenever &#8211; for whatever reason &#8211; you couldn&#8217;t take the field alongside us: how will we manage without our captain?<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;You taught me to fight until my very last breath, and showed me the meaning of devotion to the jersey and the true value of leadership.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;You protected me when I was a child, guided me as a young man, and inspired me as an adult. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;You were the greatest footballer I ever had the honour of playing with.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Former Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon shared memories of his debut for Parma competing against Baresi as a 17-year-old in 1995. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He wrote: &#8220;For a boy my age, finding myself on the field against champions like him was something incredible. From that day on, I had an even clearer understanding of what it meant to represent football with class, leadership and respect.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Inter\/status\/2083081644525731849\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">Inter Milan said:<span class=\"visually-hidden ssrcss-i2z2ig-VisuallyHidden e16en2lz0\">, <!-- -->external<\/span><\/a> &#8220;Farewell to Franco Baresi, protagonist of the great clashes in the Milan derby and one of the figures who most defined the history of the rivalry. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Captain, team man and flagbearer of AC Milan, he lived every match-up with Inter between competition and respect, within a challenge that wrote unforgettable pages of Italian soccer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Inter Milan manager Cristian Chivu said Baresi&#8217;s death &#8220;is a sad day for the whole world, he represented being one of the greats in the history of football&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni said Baresi &#8220;was not only one of the greatest champions in (Italian) sports history, but also an example of loyalty, seriousness, and dedication&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The head of the Italian football federation (FICG), Giovanni Malago, praised Baresi for the &#8220;romantic choice&#8221; of staying loyal to AC Milan throughout his career, &#8220;which rightfully made him enter the hearts of the fans and millions of Italians.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async defer src=\"https:\/\/platform.instagram.com\/en_US\/embeds.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/articles\/ckgvlz45l3eo?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maldini, 58, who also spent his entire career at Milan, paid tribute to his former team-mate, writing on Instagram:, external &#8220;Today, I feel the same way I did whenever &#8211; for whatever reason &#8211; you couldn&#8217;t take the field alongside us: how will we manage without our captain? &#8220;You taught me to fight until my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45305"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45305"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45307,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45305\/revisions\/45307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}