"SVEN GOT IN TOUCH TO SEE IF I'D BE KEEN ON PLAYING FOR ENGLAND THAT MADE ME SO PROUD"

The former Italian shot-stopper tells FourFourTwo about following in his father’s footsteps at Milan and the game that changed Chelsea forever...

- Arthur Renard

Your dad, Fabio, must’ve been a tough act to follow at Milan, having been in goal for their 1969 European Cup win...

I took the positives of having a father with great knowledge and experience in football. He advised me. When you get closer to professional level, comparisons are made, but it didn’t feel as if I was carrying a weight on my shoulders. My father stopped playing football the year before I was born, so I didn’t have the chance to see him play or to experience the family life of a footballer. When I was a teenager, I’d often be a ball boy at the first-team matches, usually under the hardcore Curva Sud stand. I remember seeing Diego Maradona play for Napoli, which was brilliant. Years later I was part of the first team myself.

Your first time in a matchday squad was for a Milan derby, in 1992 – what was that like to experience at only 18?

I’d been away for a tournament with the under-18 national team. We played the semi-final, and straight afterwards I had to travel back to Milan to sit on the bench for the derby. After the game, I immediately returned to the national squad because we had to play the final. That was a pretty hectic period. I was training with the first team that season as the third-choice goalkeeper; everyone was open and welcoming, especially the foreign lads such as Zvonimir Boban and Dejan Savicevic. They were lovely blokes. One weekend, they were going away for a game and Dejan lent me his BMW M5. I only had a Golf and Dejan said to me, “Carlo, you take my car for the weekend, but bring it back in one piece on Monday morning.” You can imagine how thrilled I was to drive around in such a great car as a 19-year-old.

What do you recall of your Champions League debut away at Porto? You were the second choice then and even made the bench for the 1993 final...