DANIEL MALDINI made his Serie A debut with Italian giants AC Milan on Sunday to follow in the footsteps of his father, club legend Paolo, and grandfather Cesare.
The 18-year-old Maldini had already taken part in pre-season friendlies, but had to wait for his first senior appearance for the seven-time European champions.
It finally came in the 93rd minute of a 1-1 draw against Hellas Verona at the San Siro.
“My debut was a dream, shame about the result,” said Maldini.
“We could have done more, but there was still a lot of emotion.
“Verona are a tough team, we deserved the three points but we brought home a draw. We hope to win the next one.”
Midfielder Maldini made his debut 35 years after his father Paolo and 66 after his grandfather Cesare.
“This debut was a goal that I had set myself, now we hope to go on like this. I felt a strong emotion but my father reassures me,” he added.
His grandfather Cesare, who died in 2016, played for 12 seasons with the club, winning four league titles and the European Cup.
Cesare also coached the team twice, from 1972-1974 and in 2001.
Paolo — considered among the best defenders of all time — holds the record for matches played in Serie A alongside Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon with 647, all for AC Milan. He won seven Scudetti and five Champions League trophies.
The 51-year-old Paolo Maldini played his final game on May 31, 2009 and is currently the club’s technical director.
His older son Christian played for AC Milan’s youth team through to the U19 level and now plays in the Italian lower divisions.
At city rivals Inter Milan, 17-year-old Filip Stankovic, son of club great Dejan, received his first call-up to the first team when he was named on the bench for their game against Udinese.
His father Dejan, a former Serbia international midfielder, won the 2010 Champions League and five Serie A titles with the Italian giants.
The 41-year-old now coaches Serbian champions Red Star Belgrade.
Highly doubt a guy of 27 years of age in a position like outhalf will make any huge addition to the ulster team when he has never played a game in the top division of any league. Surely they’ve an academy outhalf that they’d be better off promoting to the senior panel?
The problem is highlighted by the number of Ulster Youth in the Irish representative teams. 5 in the schools and 0 in the youth. Ulster rugby do not match their aspirations with investment in youth rugby to ‘find’ players such as Tagdh Furlong and SOB. Would rather see the IRFU go further by requiring the provinces to match their investments in foreign players with the same amounts in youth rugby.
I wouldn’t think much of junior team numbers really, of the irish u-19 team that won the world championship, how many can you name? it’s a professional sport and the brutal fact is a lot of those guys won’t break through from underage teams, they need to be a prodigious talent like Bo’D or the colossus that is Donncha O’Callaghan.
He’s played in the NRC. He’ll be fine for the pro 12.
The point of junior teams is to feed senior teams. Without the numbers at junior level there is nothing to come through at senior level. Case in point Munster.
Realistically though Christy, Munster have never had a significant presence in underage teams. I don’t put much stock in u-20 numbers as representative of the talent coming through provinces, mostly because arguably the two best players in this years championship, Zach McCall and Stephen Fitzgerald, came from the two least represented provinces. It’s quality not quantity basically. I’d be much happier to get one Jack O’Donoghue rather than a bunch of lads that’ll never play beyond the AIL, as we see in Leinster.
I’d imagine that the only thing He needs to do to be a permanent starter at 10 for ulster is not miss in front of the posts.
If you want to be trolling Ulster better try the Uafc forum where they might be interested.
I didn’t mean to troll, really, but if Kelly Haimona is the only pro12 kicker with a worse percentage than jackson, you desperately need backup for Pienaar.
Where are you getting your statistics from Eoghan. I assume you are making no allowance for Jackson suffering a bad back injury at the end of last season and being injured for a good part of this season. He has hardly kicked at all.
http://www.pro12rugby.com, look for the longlist of golden boot contenders. You know kicking percentage doesn’t get affected by the number of games he’s played in the season, only the number of kicks he’s hit/missed? Or are you thinking that his injury hampered his more recent performances? never assume. Realistically though when was the last time you saw a senior, capped international miss a kick in front of the post?
I’m talking about literally in front of the posts about ten yards out but thanks for your input as always Quinner.
Again Quinner, Madigan’s kick wasn’t directly in front of the post, ten yards out. He’s on the shortlist actually.