Soccer - Figo’s Career End?

The Portuguese national player and midfielder who plays for the Italian champion Inter Milan, Luis Figo, broke his right calf several times last Sunday. From all the possible days this could happen it did on his 35th birthday while at the league game against Juventus Turin when he hurtled with the Czech Pavel Nedved. He will probably be out of the action until the end of the year.

The other player Pavel Nedved, who plays as midfielder for Juventus since 2001, had to serve already a sentence of two weeks without play and other two games, because he got the red card in the game against the FC Genua after an elbow check.

It was the first game since a year that both teams met again. It seemed to be the game of the year, as all the Italians, fans or no fans seemed to be excited to watch this special match. In TV commercials it says: “This is the game we had all waited for from a year!” Back then it was speculated that for many years Turin hasn’t won their titles with fair methods. Inter always came in a close second. Last year Juventus got convicted of referees’ manipulations and they had to hand over the already celebrated championship title to Inter Milan.

Luis Figo’s contract with Inter expires at the end of this season. After the bursted changeover to Saudi-Arabian team Al-Itthihad Figo’s early career end considering his mayor injury doesn’t seem impossible. Inter Milan announced on its web site that Figo is going to be operated next Tuesday, November 6th, to stabilize his leg. Figo would have been glad about a couple of additional active years in the US and said: “I could imagine myself playing one more year in Los Angeles next to David Backham.” They had played together already with Real Madrid. Unfortunately so far he hasn’t got any chance yet.

Figo, who was born in 1972 in Almada, Lisbon; was a star already at an early age. With only twelve years he was signed by the Sporting Lissabon for the youth club and achieved third place at the FIFA World Championship 1989 with his Portuguese U16-Team. In 1991 he won his first Junior Word Championship in Portugal with the U20-Team. Back then he was 19 years old and was already internationally known. In 1995 he changed over to FC Barcelona and became the best football player ever.

After he was elected to Europe’s best football player of the year he changed over to Real Madrid for a record amount of 60 Million Euros. The following year he was elected to the World’s best football player of the year. For the Italian team Inter Milan Figo only played for two years. His last big appearance with his home country Portugal was in the World Cup 2006 when Portugal lost at the third-place play-off against Germany with 1:3.